invasion. later, galen druke, the host of fivethirtyeight's "politics" podcast. washington journal starts now. host: good morning and welcome to washington journal. the battle between ukraine and russia continues into its second week as ukraine cities face bombing from russian forces and the casualties continue to mount. more refugees fled the country as other ukrainians continued to fight to protect their homes from the russian invaders. as the fighting continues there becomes a greater concern internationally about chemical and biological weapons coming into play, as well as questions over what the u.s. and nato

should do if this drags on. of course, all of this affects our domestic situation here in the united states with sanctions, inflation, and rising gas prices affecting us all. with all of this our question to you this morning is for you to tell us what your concerns are about the russia-ukraine conflict. we open regular lines. that 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 facebook at facebook.com/c-span, on twitter @c-spanwj and you can follow us on instagram @c-spanwj.

the battle between ukraine and russia has dragged on into the second week and internationally countries are trying to find some type of way to try to cease the conflict or punish russia for invading their ukrainian neighbors. in the united states, the president is working with sanctions to try to figure out a way to stop russia. we will look at what the u.s. is doing and a story from the washington post. the washington post has the story saying, biden and european allies are moving to strip russia of one of its favorite trade sites. i will read a couple of paragraphs. they will strip russia trade benefits adding to pressures punishing vladimir putin for invading ukraine.

the european union and other seven nations plan to implement similar measures, which would have a more dramatic impact. biden called the actions another crushing blow to russia's economy which has been pummeled by financial sanctions announced in the aftermath of moscow's invasion of its neighbor. the united states and europe have cut off russian banks from global financial channels, blocked access to advanced technologies and blacklisted wealthy executives. the world is coming together, said president biden. that is the u.s. and allies working together to strip russia . here is president biden on

friday talking about the united states and nato response to what is going on in ukraine. [video clip] >> we will make sure ukraine has weapons to defend. we will. we will send money and food and aid to save ukrainian people and we should welcome refugees here with open arms if they need access. we are going to provide more support for ukraine. we will stand together with our allies and send an unmistakable message, we will defend every inch of nato territory with the full might of galvanized nato. we will not fight a war against russia in ukraine. direct confrontation between nato and russia is world war iii , something we must strive to prevent. host: we want to know what your concerns are about the russia-ukraine conflict. are you concerned about the

possibility of chemical and biological weapons? are you worried about the consequences here in the united states with rising inflation and gas prices? are you worried about world war iii starting? let's start with robert calling from baltimore, maryland on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, this would have never happened back in december. the free world is sending military equipment to ukraine. putin would have never invaded because they would have had weapons on the border. all of this could've been avoided. thank you. have a nice day. host: joe calling from georgia on the republican line.

good morning. caller: thank you very much. love c-span. been calling for over 30 years. we are working hard for a guy that believes in georgia. we started a project down here with all the ukrainians. we are lifting up and encouraging all great americans. we are worried about the ukraine war and i think we have to increase our defense spending. the main purpose of government is to protect the citizens. we need to have a strong national defense, but c-span is doing a great job. thank you for all you do. host: let's talk to perry calling from annapolis, maryland on the independent line. good morning. caller: my concern is, you know, the morality. we are sitting and watching all of this happen and doing

nothing. we are at war right now. the war is being fought, the european war, and the united states war is being fought on someone else's territory. that is where it is happening. so, we are at war right now with russia. host: do you think president biden is wrong by saying american soldiers will not be fighting in ukraine? caller: how can you stand by when there is a war going on and we are providing the people with a few weapons and they are not working. do you understand? the russians are not going to stop. what we are doing is not coming close to happening but we are

getting the advantage of fighting russia in somebody else's country in which we took away the right to nuclear power. it is unconscionable what is going on. we all ought to go to church and pray for them. host: we will talk about this later, but what do you think the united states and nato should do? should the united states and nato send troops into ukraine to directly fight russia? caller: i think they certainly have shown they are not willing to do anything by not taking these planes and giving the opportunity for them to fight a little better. their worry about russia they might go to war with them. they are at war right now. what do you think this is? all these sanctions, he ignored them. none of them are working.

and the idea that someday they may work, well, there will be no country left. host: kenny calling from wilson, north carolina on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. i think the first thing is the war over here in america, how divided we are. even our leaders -- we are supposed to show unity in time of war. it is a shame. i remember in the gulf war you are with me or not with me. the democrats cannot seem to use this to force these guys to get on board. not force them but put them on call. this is patriotism. another thing that really gets

me is trump divided the country. he thinks putin is a genius and he was ex-president. he knows a lot of information. it really scares me. i don't know if he is in contact with putin. he had all the secret phone calls with putin. i know he said obama was tapping his phone but this is the time they need to be tapping his phone. i do not know what information he can give putin. he is the one that promised putin ukraine, he tried to break up nato, that is what they should be looking at. you know, i think you need to have a show on nuclear war. i am a military veteran and i worked and know quite a bit about the nuclear system. i am not going to put anything confidential on air but a

nuclear war nobody wins. we got weapons to destroy the world over a thousand times and they need to let the people know that, because people are speaking of this like, let's start it. everybody within 15 minutes, they have hypersonic missiles. within 15 minutes we have no time to hide. this is a trying time and it is a time we need to come together as americans, jesse. host: let's go to derek calling from richmond, indiana on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to say if this were to have occurred decades previously, i think there would have been willingness by people all over the world to confront it. unfortunately, the world we face

today has seen decades of conflict, decades of hardship, decades of death and there is too much uncertainty for other states to engage russia in this conflict in ukraine. i am not saying i don't think we need to find some sort of better solution than just sanctions. i just believe there is an unwillingness by many around the world, not just the u.s., to engage russia because what are the costs? not just monetary but human life. again, if this were to have occurred decades previously, i think the world would have immediately confronted putin in a much harsher manner to prevent him from doing this to ukraine. but given the history we have all experienced, the global

history we have experienced with conflict, i think that is creating a lot of hesitancy by countries to really engage putin. host: let's go to nancy calling from st. charles, michigan on the republican line. good morning. caller: thank you and i am not really prepared. but my family -- i am 88 years old and my family came from poland. one of my aunts had to stay and serve the russian people. all she talked about was how horrible they were compared to the germans. she had to feed them and then they would do horrible things to her. and we have a country that

should be for people who are not devices. all they want is for us to think like communist people who are told what to do every day of their life. americans are not stupid people but we are being treated that way. host: nancy, what do you think president biden and nato should be doing right now in ukraine? caller: i have no idea except protecting us. i would wish everyone to think about donald trump. he is the one that thought about america first and where we live we cannot be the donkey for the world. host: let's go to john calling

from bonita springs, florida on the independent line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. my concerns about the russia-ukraine conflict are we are the media in this country, including any outlet, fox, cbs, all of them. you have propaganda on the russian side, on the ukraine side, and as a veteran of two wars i'm going to tell the american people, don't believe anything you hear right now. you are getting lied to on both sides. my concern is stay out of it. in 2015 when russia and vladimir putin were screaming at the eu and nato to stop bombing and we ignored them, the

expansion of nato into these countries, i question, why do we need nato? after the fall of the soviet union when russia wanted to join with the west why did we expand nato into these baltic countries? nothing really makes sense about this war. you had the orange revolution of 2014 that victoria nuland was involved with and obama. we installed our own government in ukraine in 2014 and proceeded to put bioweapon labs all over and start taking over the land. this is not the american's war. this is the war for the elites. george soros, davos crew, let them sort it out.

at the american veterans and all the young kids go over there and die? thank you. host: some like the previous caller said americans should stay out of it. there is concerns biological and chemical weapons may soon come into play in the russia-ukraine conflict. there is a story in today's washington post that talks about the concerns of the use of biological weapons. i will read a couple of paragraphs. the united states and its allies have intelligence russia may be preparing to use chemical weapons against ukraine. u.s. and european officials said friday, as moscow saw to invigorate its faltering offensive due to increasingly brutal assaults across multiple ukrainian cities. security officials and diplomats said the intelligence, which they declined to detail, pointed to possible preparations by russia for deploying chemical munitions, and warned the

kremlin may seek to carry out a false flag attack that attempts to pin the blame on the ukrainians, or perhaps western governments. the officials, like others quoted in the story, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter. the accusations surfaced as russia repeated claims the united states and ukraine were operating secret biological weapons labs in eastern europe, an allegation the biden administration dismissed as total nonsense and outright lies. and use of poison gases and ukraine would violate a decades-old international treaty banning such weapons, and represent a dangerous turn in russia's military offensive against its neighbor. russia, which possesses vast chemical weapons during the cold war, has outlawed nerve agents in two assassination attempts against political foes of

vladimir putin the last three years, including at least once outside its borders, western intelligence concluded. intelligence in the united states and other allies say russia may soon be considering using chemical attacks in ukraine. we want to know what your concerns are about the russia-ukraine conflict. let's go to john calling from pennsylvania on the democrat line. pronounce the name of your town for us? aliquippa? caller: yes, it is an indian name. host: go ahead. caller: my concern is where does china sit in all of this? russia is a communist country and so is china. we have put all the sanctions on putin but he is a crazy guy. he is sick. not only in mind but physically.

what are the ads of him dying -- odds of him dying and starting world war iii? you have the hypersonic missile. we have the power to protect us from the hypersonic missile but we could be gone in minutes. is china in the background? are they supporting russia in a different way? that is my concern. i am sure there is some type of involvement. host: let's go to sean calling from sailors berg, pennsylvania on the republican line. caller: good morning. how are you? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: i would like to say with this whole russia-ukraine aspect people want to blame putin for the fuel crisis that is going on

in the united states. that goes back to our president. when you look at the stopping of all fossil fuels in our country and purchasing it from a foreign country when we had our own fuel supply and now prices are skyhigh. diesel is $6.19 a gallon here and regular fuel is over four dollars. we had plenty of stock and supply and when you look at elites running this country head has gone down. i am a disabled veteran. i served my country honorably and i look at this country and the way it is being ran that our office and government is not doing what it is supposed to do for the country. what did i bleed for? what did other veterans bleed for in other countries?

everybody wants to push the blame to somebody else. the past two years we have had nothing but pandemic after pandemic after pandemic regardless of whether it is covid, something else, and now this. when you look at it, what is the deep state hiding? you had other presidential elites and other people like hillary clinton that have never been prosecuted for the issues they had. everything was washed underneath from the democrat side. i think our government needs to get their head out of their backside and stop looking at their own pockets. host: linda calling from orange, connecticut on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. tough call to follow. i genuinely respect john's service but everything he said was incorrect and it makes me feel bad. but as for ukraine, i think it

is scary and we should be concerned. in our hearts we want to go in and stop the russians and we know militarily we could but every general past and present said that is the wrong thing to do when that is what we want to do. we want to save them. i am concerned it is going to further divide our nation. i really love my fellow americans. i think we should sit back and do all we can and listen to the military experts and don't be afraid of our media. they are not causing a war, putin is causing a war. it is not deep state, it is not george soros, it is vladimir putin. we need to take a deep breath and look at each other as a nation and do what we can to help and trust the military

experts around the world to get us out of this without world war iii. host: earlier this week president biden's intelligence chiefs were asked in congress about the potential of russia using biological or chemical weapons in ukraine. here is the exchange between gop senator susan collins of maine in cia director william burns that happened earlier this week. [video clip] >> i read about the russian defense ministry publicly accusing ukraine of possibly planning a false flag chemical weapon attack. what do you make of that? does that signal putin intends to launch a chemical or biological weapon attack on the ukraine? >> thanks very much, senator. i think it underscores the

concern all of us need to focus on those kind of issues whether it is the potential for use of chemical weapons either as a false flag operation or against ukrainians. this is something, as all of you know, is something of russia's playbook. they have used them against their own citizens. they have at least encouraged the use in syria and elsewhere. it is something we take seriously and it is one of the reasons as director haynes said earlier i am convinced declassification to preempt those false flag efforts and the creation of false narratives have been so important. in all the years i spent as a career diplomat i saw too many instances in which we lost information wars with the russians. in this case, i think we have had a great deal of affect in disrupting their tactics and calculations and demonstrating to the entire world that this is

a premeditated and unprovoked aggression built on a body of lies and false narratives. this is one information war i think putin is losing. host: let's see what our social media followers are saying about their concerns about the russia-ukraine conflict. here is one from facebook that says, that part of the world has been, currently is, and will continue to be way too complex for bumper sticker and hashtag sloganeering and for moral absolution. if you are doing this, then please stop, please. a tweet that says, president zelensky says when putin finishes with ukraine he will get around to other european states of the former soviet union. believe it. this thought has lost it. the time to stop him is now. another tweet that says, send the volunteers don't draft our kids for ukraine's freedom.

another tweet that says, i thought america was a global source for good but under this administration we are hiding from a bully. if biden was any kind of leader, he would have given the ok to send the polish migs to ukraine. a text says, protests being planned by americans march against war. it will dwarf vietnam movement. one final text that says, just keep pushing putin and the worst will happen for america. we are already in a huge mess with problems here. stay out of the ukraine mass. we want to know what your concerns are about the russia-ukraine conflict. let's go back to phone lines and talk to stephen calling from ohio on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead. caller: i am a 33-year-old disabled air force vet. after reading the tweet i am in

the camp biden should take unmanned combat drones to the ukraine army. turkey and nato allies are already sending lethal tb2's to great effect. ukraine operators of the drones could be brought up to speed on how to operate u.s.-made reaper drones. on another point, i think c-span viewers ought to check out the subreddit to augment the geopolitical discourse in mainstream media, especially concerning ukraine versus russia. host: are you concerned about if the united states sends united states build weapons to ukraine russia may consider that an act of war? caller: turkey is already producing loitering munitions in ukraine for the use against russia. turkey is a nato ally.

if they are doing it, i think the u.s. can do it, too with our own combat drones sent to ukraine. also, these drones are unmanned. if they shoot down the drone, no good guys get killed. we could just keep sending drones to kill them but they can't kill us. i really do think we should send combat drones to ukraine. host: catherine calling from new york on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was listening to russia speak at the u.n. and they said they had info about the labs in with biological weapons and that the u.s. is involved in these labs. of course, i feel like that is a set up for exploding -- for the

russians to explode a weapon like that. but they also said this was the world's problem. i don't understand why the world does not agree with russia and say, yes, give us this information. as it is the world's problem the world will go and find the lab. but russia has to withdraw and stop pushing ukraine into the corner because if there is some kind of lab, whether ukraine did it or russia pushed them into doing it, the world should say, we hold you responsible, russia. and if russia does not want to share its info and allow the world to take care of the problem, i think we have the answer that there will be some sort of release of a dirty bomb and we need to step it up. i don't think at this point

doing anything with sanctions is really penetrating to putin. host: lanko calling from cincinnati, ohio on the independent line. good morning. are you there? let's go to jerry calling from overton, nebraska on the republican line. good morning. caller: i just wanted to remind people before the 2012 election obama sat with the russian foreign minister. he did not know he was on a hot mic and said, tell vladimir i will have more flexibility after the election. it was 2014 that russia went into ukraine and when they did that obama sent blanket mres.

i hate these people saying trump tried to destroy nato. that is a lie. he wanted nato to pay their own way. the germans are starting to do that. they are just lying when they say trump wanted to destroy nato. thank you. host: mike calling from new york on the democrat line. good morning. caller: this is mike from new york. host: go ahead. caller: hello? yeah, i am sick and tired of hearing people talk about trump the wrong way. i am an ex navy seal. once a.c.l. always a.c.l.. i work for -- once a seal always a seal. i work for the government now.

the ukrainian people are dying quicker than we know about. they are outnumbered, out armed, it is sick. it is like giving someone a stick to fight a war against a 50 caliber machine gun. it is terrible. we don't have to put feet on the ground. we got drones, we got submarines all around russia, we can just ballistic eight the hell out of them with clean bombs, not dirty bombs. subs hold over 150 of them. we can shoot them all day long and hit all of their tanks from above. we don't need to go feet on the ground. we don't need to put american lives at stake. trump was right about this all the way. they say he kept putin in

his pocket. no. putin is another hitler in disguise. he is not going to stop just with ukraine. he is going to go for poland. who knows? france might be after them. he is not going to stop with just ukrainians. host: john calling from dalton, pennsylvania on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. first off i would like to say thank you to all of our veterans that have served. i appreciate what they have done. we do need to get together and we need to thank them and i am afraid of starting world war iii. i agree we should not put any soldiers in ukraine and we cannot go bombing them like the

people are saying. but i do agree with may be giving them drones to help. i also agree with we got wells here in north dakota that we need to uncap and bring down the gas prices and even help with transportation. make things cheaper for the tractor-trailers so groceries are cheaper and everything else. it would help a little bit in our economy as well. host: let's go to ashley calling from greenwich, ohio on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. we don't have to worry about all of this. i'm telling you, russia is not there to hurt anybody that should not be hurt. there is people inside ukraine right now, big-time people, and

they are harming children. that is what this is all about. they are there to help the children being harmed. that's it. they are not harming any innocent people in ukraine. they are taking out the deep state. that is what they are doing. they are there to get the children out to protect them. this is all a lie. host: the daily mail had a story in its newspaper yesterday i wanted to bring to you where the russian forces are being accused of kidnapping the mayor of one of ukraine's major cities. i will bring that story to you. shocking video footage reports to show a mayor being kidnapped by russian troops after he refused to cooperate with the enemy. ukrainian officials and

president zelensky claimed on friday russian soldiers kidnapped ivan fedorov from the crisis center. cctv footage posted on telegram by the deputy head of ukraine's presidential office, appears to show a group of men escorting him out of the building and across a square. ukraine's parliament claimed he was kidnapped by 10 armed men who placed a plastic bag over his head. russia has not commented on the fate of mr. fedorov. the clip which has been shown widely was believed to have been filmed in victory square in southeastern ukraine. this comes from the daily mail with the mayor of a major ukraine city "being abducted" by russian troops and led away with a bag over his head. now, the united states

ambassador to the united nations, linda thomas greenville, came out yesterday and talked about what russia said during the security council meeting. here is what the american ambassador to the u.n. had to say. [video clip] >> last month, secretary blinken laid out with tragic accuracy what russia was about to do. he specifically warned russia would manufacture a pretext for attack and even cautioned that russia would fabricate allegations about chemical or biological weapons to justify its own violent attacks against the ukrainian people. today, the world is watching russia do exactly what we warned it would. russia is attempting to use the security council to legitimize disinformation and deceive people to justify president putin's war of choice against the ukrainian people.

and china too has been spreading disinformation in support of russia's claims. i will say this once, ukraine does not have a biological weapons program. there are no ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the united states. not near russia's border or anywhere. here are the facts. ukraine owns and operates its own public health laboratory infrastructure. these facilities make it possible to detect and diagnose diseases like covid-19, which benefit us all. the united states has assisted ukraine to do this safely and securely. this is work that has been done proudly, clearly, and out in the open. this work has everything to do with protecting the health of people. it has absolutely nothing,

absolutely nothing to do with biological weapons. in fact, it is russia that has long maintained a biological weapon program in violation of international law. it is russia that has a well documented history of using chemical weapons. it is russia who is the aggressor here. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying about their concerns about the russia-ukraine conflict. here is one text that says, the nuclear power plants are a threat to the world. putin's own people need to stop him from within. a tweet that says, the average russian has no idea what is happening. stores and restaurants are shuttered. it must be almost as terrifying for them too. putin is destroying two countries with his war. another tweet that says, will

cause great famine, may maybe worldwide, because ukraine is a breadbasket. one final tweet that says, what are biden implicit waiting for? more kids to be killed? more nuclear power plants to be attacked? i am a furious democrat. sanctions only hurt the russian people, not putin. we must attack putin in ukraine now. hit his tanks and his artillery today. before we get back to our phone calls i want to bring up a couple of programming notes. on monday live at 10:00 a.m. the united nations security council will receive a briefing from poland's foreign minister and discussions will likely be focused on russia's invasion of ukraine. you can watch that live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, online at c-span.org, or watch full coverage on c-span now, our free radio app. also coming up, cyber attacks by

russia in the ukraine invasions will be discussed with senate intelligence chair mark warner and others at an event hosted by the center for strategic and international studies. you can watch that live monday morning at 11:00 eastern on c-span2, online at c-span.org, or you can watch full coverage on our free video app, c-span now. we want to know what your concerns are about the russia-ukraine conflict. let's start with sherry calling from dublin, ohio on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. what i want people to understand -- the ones who say we need to stay out of this -- go back to world war ii with hitler and the nazis. everyone kept saying, nothing is going on, they are not killing

jews, they are not doing this, that and the next thing. people did not believe it. hitler had his camps. they had them looking good when people went in there visiting. it did not look let things were bad but look at history. there is a reason it is called history. we are supposed to learn from it. all we keep doing is turning around and repeating history and that is exactly what is happening right now with putin and russia. they have no business being in the ukraine. it is all part of it. if the world does not help ukraine out, it will be another world war iii but it will be another repeat of world war ii and hitler and the nazis. host: raymond calling from arizona on the republican line. good morning. caller: she is right.

host: good morning. caller: hi. host: go ahead. caller: she is right. if we ignore this, it is going to get worse. russia has always been our enemy . china is just as bad. people want to dismiss it and everyone is wrong. trump never did anything. all the sanctions were in congress. it was voted on, it was not him. every president has messed up with putin input and's career -- and putin's career. the only one that didn't was donald trump. he was an unwitting russian agent. host: let's go to joann calling from new hampshire on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning.

i like with the previous two callers said. my opinion is it is easy for us to sit in our warm homes behind a computer and play a fun game of risk. but, as you know, when you are playing with someone who does not like to lose they can explode. that is kind of what i feel that we really have to look at putin. you might cut me off but i think we have to do a rasputin solution which is what happened with the czar in world war i when they had a crazy man that was going to take their country down. they had to find a way to do something with him. now he uses people as protection. nobody mentioned north korea.

they are also a very strong nuclear threat to us. we have threats on our west coast that a lot of people are thinking about. we are thinking about going over into europe and i feel bad for the ukrainians. i hope we can help them but what happens if we go over there and they start talking like, hey, we could hit the west coast really easy. i just think putin is not mentally stable. kim jong-un sure likes to show off his muscles. i think we have to watch what we say because they can tap into our media and use our words against us. host: james calling from hot springs national park, arkansas on the democrat line. good morning. caller: how are you doing? good morning. host: i'm fine. go ahead. caller: i just want to say this,

all of this crap, the problem we have got going on is all these republicans calling in -- biden is doing nothing but try to help this country. that is all biden is trying to do. and all these republicans -- i mean, i am appalled at these republicans. they are calling in claiming this crap with biden. trump was over in helsinki telling the world the united states was wrong. what is wrong with these republican people? host: let's go to byron calling from tampa, florida on the democrat line. good morning. caller: hi. as a high school history teacher here in florida i would like to tell you a historical fact.

putin is trying to enter the history books, the russian history books. every leader of russia going back to ivan the terrible was a murderous dictator. that includes the czars, stalin. only gorbachev was the one that was not a murderous dictator. when putin is a leader of russia the example he follows is that of a murderous dictator. he is willing to kill his own people. the soviets killed 5 million to 6 million ukrainians in a fabricated starvation during the soviet union's period. that shows you how crazy the dictators have been of this country. also, i would like to say every time -- if you look at napoleon, hitler, putin, and you look at kim jong-un they have one thing

in common, they are all really short and they're trying to compensate for something. thank you very much. host: let's go to george calling from ellicott city, maryland on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. after the soviet union disintegrated the west, notably the u.s., and nato and the eu, told ukraine to demolish their nuclear weapons which they did in exchange for protection. hello? host: you are still on. go ahead. caller: in exchange for protection so they gave up their nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons is a deterrent. at this point they are entitled

to protection by any means necessary. they need to be defended by any means necessary. and also, with the sanctions, these sanctions should include china. if china provide any aid to russia, china should be sanctioned. if you look at world war ii, after world war ii those people sacrificed everything for this generation. gas prices going up so the whole world need to tighten up their belt and be prepared for economic depression. host: speaking of sanctions, president joe biden came out on friday to announce new sanctions against russia and explain what he thinks those sanctions will do. here is what president joe biden had to say. [video clip]

>> most favored nation status means they trade under the best possible terms. few barriers of trade and the highest possible imports allowed. in the united states we call this permanent normal trade relations, pntr. revoking pntr for russia will make it harder for them to do business with the united states and doing it in unison with other nations who make up half the global economy will be another crushing blow to the russian economy who is already suffering bradley. -- badly. i want to thank leader pelosi, leader mcconnell, and others for their bipartisan leadership on this in congress. i would like to offer special thanks to speaker pelosi who has been a strong advocate for revoking pntr and agreed to hold off on that in the house until i

could line of all key allies to keep us incomplete unison. unity among our allies is critically important as you all know, from my perspective at least. standing for democracy in ukraine, pushing russia's aggression, should not be one of those issues. the free world is coming together to confront putin. our two parties at home are leading the way. with that bipartisan cooperation i am looking forward to signing into law the bill revoking pntr, most favored nation status. we are taking a further step of banning imports of goods from several sectors of the russian economy, including seafood, vodka and diamonds. we will continue to squeeze putin. the g-7 will deny russia the ability to borrow from leading institutions such as the international monetary fund and the world bank. putin is an aggressor.

he is the aggressor and putin must pay the price. host: let's see what our social media followers are saying about their concerns in the russia-ukraine conflict. here is one tweet that says, sanctions hurt the russian people. sanctions do not affect putin. his wealth is protected. he is a wealthy man that hides his assets out of russia. putin does not care about russia and will do whatever he wants. body needs to intervene today or europe could be lost. another tweet that says, it is a conflict. people are dying. there is going to be a massive refugee crisis. putin wants to erase ukraine off the map as a sovereign country. those are my concerns. another tweet that says, if and when putin begins to use chemical or biological weapons against the ukrainian populace, it means he is becoming desperate and running out of conventional munitions. another tweet that says, putin was evil enough to invade

ukraine so him using biological -chemical weapons as possible. one less post on facebook says, the chief concern has to be humanitarian concerns. russia's war on ukraine will continue to displace, mame, and kill ukrainians caught needlessly in this conflict and countries around the world need to be ready to address the human cost of this conflict. the sympathies with the kremlin's justifications for its invasion of ukraine and its war crimes expressed by apologists in the united states is also concerning. we want to know what your concerns are. dan is calling from poughkeepsie, new york on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i love everybody's input by the way. i remember growing up with how things were worth russia and we would do military exercises with our allies. i just member the russians being

able to observe us while major nichols went into eastern russia to take pictures that he was shot dead. the russians could shoot down a civilian airline over korea, do with they want. i think this is very sad but i think it is a good thing for people of this generation to learn of how it really is. we kind of need a bit of a -- i did not like reagan but i like the way him and the pope dealt with russia. as for donald trump, i think he graduated from century 21 real estate and that is what we got. thank you very much. host: jimmy: from westbrook, maine -- calling from westbrook, maine on the democrat line. caller: the last thing about donald trump, he tried to bring

nato together and pay their fair share. everybody laughed at him. i remember him talking to the germans about the oil pipeline and he said, why are you buying oil from them? you are going to end up being bought and sold by them and they're going to control you. this is what happened. you might call him a century 21 real estate guy but he sort of had this country's back. i did not vote for joe biden. i want them to be successful but he scares me as our leader. he reads good. he just talked about the trade deficit. between us and china it is the largest deficit we have had this year. this is not fixing anything. i bought a little truck that will cost me $1600 more a month. he will put me out of business. it is not just in russia this hardship. they need to put warp speed on getting oil out of the ground, clean oil in america, and go green then. do not put the cart in front of

the horse. this is not hard to figure out. i am a simple milkman. i don't need these hardware people telling. . me what i got to do let's fix america. i love america. democrats, republicans, all of us, let's fix it. thank you. host: art calling from austin, texas on the democrat line. caller: good morning. do you know what is so sad? we have never allowed russian dignitaries, russian secretary of state, to talk with the president. president trump was a traitor. everybody saying he did good, he did not did good. he did for himself to make money out of russia.

he shook hands with putin, kissed him on the cheek. we have never been accustomed to doing something like that with the russians and now you trump followers saying, he was doing good with russia. no, he made it easy for putin to do what he is doing now. host: let's talk to richard calling from little rock, arkansas on the republican line. good morning. caller: thanks a lot. one note from an earlier color. in 1987, ukraine did turn over nuclear weapons and we were going to protect them. since president obama took office the russians took what they wanted from ukraine. my question today is, it was not but a couple of years ago ukraine -- joe biden was

getting a prosecutor kicked out. russia's military is so outdated they are having trouble coming across ukraine. why this exact thing happened right now i think it is a test of the waters. once putin cut the gas and oil deal couple of years ago i think they are trying to see how much everybody can stand up. you need to look at to ukraine and what has been going on the past 20 years before you suddenly think they are just the blameless country. i don't want anyone getting hurt or killed. comments about hitler and all that, we are nowhere near that. i appreciate you letting me call. host: we would like to thank all of our callers who called in for the first segment. coming up next, rand corporation senior policy researcher daniel gerstein will be here to discuss

chemical and biological threats and russia's invasion of ukraine. coming up later in our spotlight on podcasts segment, we talk about public opinion of the conflict in ukraine with galen druke, host and producer of fivethirtyeight's fivethirtyeight's politics podcast. stick with us. we will be right back. >> this week on c-span networks, both chambers of congress are in session. the houseboats to revoke russia's normal trade relations in response to its ongoing invasion of ukraine. it will also take up the $15.6 billion emergency pandemic relief bill. the senate votes on the confirmation of shalonda yacht to be white house budget director. on monday on c-span, poland's foreign minister, who chairs the organization for security and cooperation in europe, briefs you and security counsel about

the crisis stemming from russia's invasion of ukraine and other issues. tuesday at 10:00 a.m., state department officials testify before the senate foreign relations committee on the u.s. response to the rise and authoritarianism around the globe. on wednesday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3, senior military officials discuss europe before the house armed services committee. and on thursday at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span.org and the c-span now free video app, defense department intelligence leaders testify before the house armed services committee. watch next week to live on the c-span net works, or on c-span now, the mobile video app. also head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪

>> american history tv. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. martin to caro, host of the history as it happens podcast, talks with georgetown university professor michael kazen about the history of the democratic party and how the parties politics, ideas, and coalitions mirrored larger themes in american history. on "the presidency," part two of our series "first lady: in the first words." we look at their time in the white house and the issues important to them. this week will feature betty for -- betty ford. >> the equal rights amendment will not be an instant solution to women's problems. it will not alter the fabric of the constitution. or for women away from their families. it will help knock down those restrictions that have locked women into the old stereotypes of behavior and opportunity.

exploring the american story. watch american history tv and find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with daniel gerstein, who is a senior policy researcher with the rand corporation, and he is here to discuss the chemical and biological threats and the invasion of ukraine. dan, good morning. guest: good morning, jesse. nice to be here. host: first of all, explain your background in bio security and some of your work in this field. guest: well, i have a doctorate in biodefense, and that is from george mason university. i have been working in the field for over 15 years and served in

a variety of positions within industry, to government. i was in the obama administration doing this kind of work as the principal director for countering weapons of mass destruction in the office of the secretary of defense for policy. here at rand i work on a lot of security and defense issues, public health, emerging technology. and i have a long background in security defense, going back to my days in uniform, and, of course, industry think tanks and academia. i am also an author. i have two published books on biological warfare and i have done a number of studies on the government, as well as publishing a number of articles. i have also spent a good bit of time in ukraine, particularly dealing with the cooperative threat reduction, and in particular the laboratories and buyer research facilities -- bio research facilities we are

talking about. that will be an interesting host: part of the discussion. host:i want to bring up one of the -- host: i want to bring up one of the books he wrote during the biological weapons convention. -- ro. the biological weapons convention. guest: the bouquet working title that started out as the biological and toxin weapons convention, the most important arms control agreement you have never heard of. most people don't know about this very important convention, if you look at what can -- it pertains to a can be involved with up to 20% of the u.s. economy. it is an important convention and one that has had a bit of a checkered past. for my -- so my reason for writing the book was to think about how u.s. policy could evolve and become more

enlightened with respect to the biological weapons convention. that is, to try to implement certain processes and procedures that would help with questions such as verification and compliance. host: so let's get some basic information about chemical and biological weapons, and some of the concerns we have about what is going on in ukraine. first of all, for our audience, can you tell us the difference between a chemical weapon and a biological weapon? are they the same thing and are the two different things? guest: no they are not, and they are very often conflated, which is really a bit of a problem, since they have very different implications. we talk about biological weapons, you are talking about not just the biological material that makes up these weapons, but

also the method of delivery, whether that is an aerosol spray, or in the case of a bioterrorist, or whether that would be much -- be something more sophisticated if there was some sort of state biological weapons attack. and we are talking about the use of microbial agents another biological agents. this can also include toxins. simmer me think about biological weapons, we normally address bacterial, virus, and biologically-derived toxins. then they give you a couple of examples. we talk about bacterial weapons, i think most of your viewers are probably familiar with the term anthrax, or the pathogen anthrax from the 2000 one attacks here in the united states. that is an example of a bacterial agent. a viral agent, of course, would be very different.

viruses are not living organisms, some of me think about viruses, we think about smallpox. think about ebola. perhaps other viral hemorrhagic fevers. today we spent a lot of time talking about covid. even though that is not a biological weapon per se, but it is a virus. then when we talk about toxins we are talking about those types of elements derived from biological material that have been purified. think about botulinum neurotoxin, which comes from a bacteria. what is the difference now with chemical weapons? chemical weapons also require both the chemical, as well as a means of delivery. say, it is a bomb or artillery shell, something like that. when we think about the chemical weapons, though, we have a set

of the river -- very refined the lists we use to govern the chemicals. and we lump them into various categories depending on whether they are only used for weapons or could be used for industrial processes. here we are thinking about different agents like blood and nerve agents. more frequently we are talking about opioids as a potential chemical weapon. so, you know, chemical weapons are not derived from living matter. what is interesting is, when one looks at chemical and biological weapons, there are actually some agents that are categorized as both chemical and biological. an example is ricin, which is derived from a been a plant, but

the purified toxin is also on the chemical munitions list. host: we have heard a lot of talk about chemical and biological weapons when it comes to the russia/ukraine conflict rate why are we hearing about this now? guest: the experts are saying we are looking at a potential for a false flag operation. something where the russians may it clear that there are issues and they are expecting some sort of chemical or biological attack and they are going to prepare for that. this is really, as the state department has said, these are just lies. they are untruths. in fact, the only laboratories that ukraine has today are those dedicated to public health

issues, biosurveillance, understanding the microbes that would be in ukraine that could possibly cause disease. and, you know, they could be everything from animal diseases such as african swine fever, which is in the hog populations in large parts of europe. it could be anthrax, which is both a human and animal disease that is endemic in many countries. those laboratories exist to do bio surveillance. they exist to do reporting and to do research to be able to develop diagnostics and medical countermeasures. on the chemical side of the house, all of the munitions that were once stockpiled in ukraine were returned to russia as part of the cooperative threat

reduction, and they have subsequently been destroyed by russia, with the organization for proliferation and chemical weapons as observers, and the united states assisted in developing those facilities. so there are no chemical weapons, there are no biological weapons. the only -- you know, in terms of chemical, certainly a country like ukraine is going to have chemical agents, not in terms of warfare agents, but chemicals such as chlorine that they would use for filtering their water. they would never have that for use on a battlefield. host: let me take a second here to remind our viewers, they can take part in this conversation. you're going to open up our regular lines. that means democrats, you can call (202) 748-8000.

republicans, your line 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, and on facebook. now, we have seen the american government both at the united nations and from the white house say that russia intends a disinformation campaign as an excuse for it to use chemical and biological weapons. are there currently any international treaties that forbid this or any type of international agreements that says they can't do this? guest: well, jesse, that is right on target. there are absolutely international agreements in place. for biological, we have the biological weapons convention.

it was entered into force in 1975. it establishes an unequivocal norm against the use of any sort of biological material for warfare. and the only use of these biological materials is for what we will call the three p's -- prophylactic, or other peaceful purposes. inc. about other biological research as part of the biotech industry. for the chemical weapons convention, that entered into force in 1997. as i mentioned, it is a list-based approach to trying to ensure that weapons that are chemical weapons-specific, or precursors that could be used to make chemical weapons are not available, and cannot be developed, or are not allowed to be used for any purpose on the

battlefield. and, you know, another one we have is the united nations security council resolution 1540 that was established in 2004, which prevents nonstate actors from acquiring nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, their means of delivery, or any other related materials. and, of course, you know, as part of our work we have had since 1993 the cooperative threat reduction. many of your viewers may notice as the cooperative threat reduction program. we put it in place. it was a bipartisan effort to get rid of all of the dangerous facilities, materials that were part of the old former soviet weapons programs.

and any that could be returned to peaceful purposes, that was done. such as bio surveillance and research. if it wasn't, then the material was destroyed. and we paid billions of dollars to help the states of the former soviet union get rid of their stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. host:1 yesterday pentagon spokesman john kirby was asked by a reporter about the russian chemical and bio weapons capabilities and whether the u.s. thinks that russia would actually use these weapons. i want you to listen to what john kirby said, then react to it, dan. john: i don't want to get into intelligence assessments. we are watching this as closely as we can. i don't have anything to report with respect to specific russian kim/bio capabilities inside ukraine.

this is a country that has a reputation for using those kinds of weapons on people, and we know they have a program. two, we continue to watch for the potential -- and i want to stress the word potential. potential that they could be banging this drum with the intent of creating some sort of false flag event that they could use as an excuse to escalate the conflict even more. again, we are watching this everyday. i don't have any specific indication now to talk about, but it is something we are concerned about. you might have heard president zelensky last night say that exact thing. that you have to be careful what you see the russians accuse others of, because it often times ends up being what they are planning to do. again, we don't have firm indications right now. it is just something that could happen that we want to watch out

for. host: i want to hear your reaction to what john kirby said there, dan. guest: i agree fully with what he said and i will amplify a couple of points. the first is that we have seen russia participate in false flag operations. even though they were not implicated in the use of chemical weapons in syria in support of the shah al-assad regime -- bassar al-assad regime, they did not attempt to stop the use of chemical weapons . and, in fact the assad regime used these chemical weapons and nerve agents and toxic industrial chemicals such as chlorine in trying to defeat their enemies. and eventually we did get the stocks destroyed, but what happened was, they used these with pretty good effect on cities.

and these other sorts of chemical munitions that could be used to -- it would settle in basements and they could kill people who are trying to hide underground to avoid the shelling. so i very much agree with that. we have seen russia close-up and personal with respect to the use of chemical weapons on their own people. we have seen them use novichok, which is a nerve agent. against people like navalny. so we have every expectation that they have a program. it is an offense of program, and they have used it. with respect to biological, we have great uncertainty about what the soviet or the former soviet and now the russian program actually entails.

we helped rebuild some of their laboratories to western standards as part of the program. we have not ever been able to go back and inspect the work to ensure that it was done appropriately, which really should be because for concern. and we don't have good sense of what they are doing in those laboratories. they certainly have the capability, as we have seen, for both developing chemical and biological weapons. and we should expect that they are proceeding along these lines. host: one of the things that happened last week is that russia has been spreading what the united states government says are false rumors that the u.s. has higher labs -- biolabs in ukraine. does the united states have a dialogical or chemical weapons program? if we do, where is it? if we don't, why don't we?

guest: as part of the cwc for chemicals and the bwc for biological, we were giving up all of our offense of programs we had. the biological program was halted by president nixon in 1969. the chemical weapons program ended through the chemical weapons convention that entered into force in 1997. since that time we have been destroying all of the stocks. we have destroyed approximately 75% of our stocks. they are in a couple of depots around the united states, and it is just a matter of throughput to destroy the stocks. they are no longer able to be used, and we would not use that. it is against international law conventions that we have signed up to. host: let's let some of our viewers join this conversation. we will start with greg, who was

calling from richfield, wisconsin on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span, and good morning, daniel. guest: good morning. caller: i have a couple of questions regarding the rand corporation. historically you guys were kind of put together dealing with cold war issues and how to keep america safe. now what i have seen is that you are going way past that. if we want to talk about ukraine and weapons that is one thing. you are doing social engineering , specifically who is funding the rand corporation and moving beyond the traditional role of the rand corporation to keep america safe, and nuclear weapons out of the world's hands? what are you doing these days in terms of social engineering? because as a growing corporation i think you are way beyond, way over your skis in terms of what your initial intentions were.

thank you. guest: well, ok, thanks for the question, let me push back a little bit on that. rand corporation was started in 1947. its first contracts were with the air force, and it is very prominent in work such as deterrence theory, which was part of the cold war and how we waged the cold war. but rand is an organization, a federally-funded research and development center. we have a very close relationship with all of the military services. the department of defense, the joint chiefs of staff. we are continuing to assist in a wide range of activities. in addition, there are many customers that we have that see us as very good for helping them think through challenging problems. so, let me give you an example of a study just completed.

i looked at the plan in columbia that knelt with counter narcotics and counterinsurgency. and we looked at the period of 2000 to 2020 to assess how well u.s. support to colombian authorities, to the colombian government, actually functioned. and so, you know, that kind of work may not fit into what you will consider to be the traditional, but it is very important. another study i participated in and testified in front of congress had to do with covid-19. and i think if we have learned anything so far from covid we would have to say that my you know, the relationship between public health and national security and economic security is very strong and one that requires an organization like rand with the skills we bring to

think through the hard problems. so i don't think we are over our skis. in fact, i think we are doing the type of work that is in the public interest. but thank you very much for that question. host: let's go to brian, who is calling from fulsome, pennsylvania on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. things were taking my call, daniel. i was wondering if the enhancement of attentional pandemic packages can be weaponized as biological? in my second question would be -- i hope you can answer them both -- would be fentanyl as a chemical weapon and how that can be weaponized against a population, either attacked as individuals or society? there are my questions. guest: great. thanks for both of those. on the first one, the consideration of pathogens to be

weaponized, it certainly is possible to see the weaponization of things like, you know, talk about covid-19, but on the other hand what i think covid-19 and, you know, some of the hype around, you know, the experiments being conducted, you know, this is really about better understandings of these pathogens and how they function. and that helps us develop medical countermeasures. it helps us develop vaccines. it helps us be prepared and to understand this biological environment in which we live. so, it is very important. now, can they be weaponized? i think the question comes back to, you know, something like covid is not controllable in this way. it is not as though you can steer it one way or another.

so something like influenza, or that has a very broad ability to -- for transmissibility is likely not to be a very good weapon as we have often talked about, it could boomerang back on your own population. so from that standpoint it is not really something that i would expect to be weaponized. you know, on your second question on fentanyl, we actually have a couple of interesting experiences where we have seen the russians use fentanyl. and they have used it with pretty good effect. the most prominent one is the 2002 siege of the theater. they used a fentanyl which is about 10 times more potent than regular fentanyl. it is very dangerous. it is an opioid.

if you get a high enough dose you will need to have either mechanical ventilation -- that is, he will have to have cpr -- or you will have to have naloxone to counter the effects. and if you don't have either of those two, very rapidly, that individual is likely to expire. so it is extremely dangerous. we have seen the russians use it in an aerosol form. they had a number of deaths in the theater incident, and part of that was not able to control the concentrations. too many people got too high a concentration and it led to numerous deaths. host: one of our social media followers has a question. this question says, can nuclear deterrence be used to protest their use, or does using biochem -weapons sidestepmutually assured destruction?

---i used to be a huge tomkat -- tom clancy fan. i remember a line that says, the united states considers biological and chemical weapons to be the same as nuclear weapons, so if they were used against the u.s., a nuclear attack could be the result. is that line true, and does bio chem weapons sidestep mutually assured destruction? guest: it is an interesting proposition. we have thought about this. one of the reasons why president nixon decided to renounce biological weapons is we recognized not only the power of these types of weapons -- that is, dialogical material converted to weapon, but we also recognized how inexpensive they were to develop. and some had even labeled them the poor man's atomic bomb. it was not advantageous to have the world with the ability and

the proliferation of these kinds of capabilities. so, you know, we are certainly concerned about that. but your other part of the question was really interesting too. that goes back to the nuclear posture review. when i was in the obama administration the nuclear posture review actually had a line in it which called out that we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the case of a biological attack. what i would not want to do right now is preempt by them -- preempt the bided administration. they are in the process of doing their nuclear posture review and we will have to see where they come out on this. but definitely we have concerns about the extraordinary capability of biological weapons. now, since tom clancy wrote his book i would say we have become a bit more enlightened about the

utility of amoco weapons and the dangers from chemical weapons. they remain very dangerous. but unlike nuclear weapons, unlike biological weapons that could have a strategic effect -- the pentagon, the thresholds, the size of the weapons employed -- we generally do not think of chemical weapons as being strategic. they are really more tactical in nature. they are much more confined to geographically-smaller areas. you know, the experience of world war i, it took literally hundreds of thousands of gallons of these toxic industrial chemicals such as phosphine and chlorine in particular, and phosgene as a weapon, to have a battlefield effect. they do dissipate rapidly, whereas the biological,

depending on the pathogen, could be persistent. in the case of something like anthrax, which is a spore-forming agent, that would be something very dangerous. nuclear comes with a variety of other issues that i think your listeners are very familiar with. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to yaya on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask about disinformation, paired up with biological weapons. and i want to mention how the u.s., prior to covid we were having measles outbreaks in various parts of the country. and, you know, i am an rn and i would wonder, why are there anti-vaxxers out there?

have celebrities on the anti-vax train. people did not want to vaccinate against measles, so we were having outbreaks. there were outbreaks in schools. i just think it is not even necessary to attack the u.s. with bio weapons. we have been getting attacked with disinformation for many years, and that is causing ourselves to weaponize infectious diseases and spread it. and i did not see it coming with these measles outbreaks, so once this covid anti-vaccine hysteria started coming up and hundreds of thousands of americans died from covid, it is really frightening because all we need is infectious disease and social media and we will harm our several -- harm ourselves. guest: i'm not sure there is a questionnaire, but i'm happy to make a comment. my, will be, thanks for your service as an rn. the other thing i would say is,

i agree with you on the disinformation. as someone who is in this field and testified a number of times about covid to congress -- and, you know, these issues are near and dear to me. watching what is going on with medical countermeasures, the disinformation, people taking treatments that have no hope of working, you know, people who are not adhering to the calls for vaccines, i mean, that is really crushing. and at the end of the day, the time we look at the people who are directly attributed to have died from covid plus the excess deaths from covid we could be looking at, you know, 1.5 million, maybe even 2 million people who will have died from covid-19. and some of those deaths, particularly those since the vaccines have been relatively -- been readily available, they are

heart-wrenching to think about. the families that have been destroyed and the suffering that has gone on. i certainly agree with your point. host: let's go to brad, who is calling from brooklyn, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. daniel, thank you for taking my question. i have a question about anthrax. back in 2001, shortly after 9/11 we had some anthrax attacks in this country. the fbi thought possibly that stephen hatfield had the potential to manufacture weaponized anthrax, which we know is a reduced spore that can go deeper into the lungs and is coated with an anti-static to keep it floating in the air. now, we have been told that we do not know who possesses the delivery system to make this

effective, but my question is this. if you could imagine a warm august day in manhattan and someone with a quart of weaponized anthrax on top of a building, a 30 story building, sprinkling anthrax down onto the sidewalk, what do you think about that sort of possibility and the hundreds of thousands of people who might die in a very short period of time after that? guest: well, i think about it all the time, actually. this is an area where i have great concerns. in fact, an earlier book i did before the arms-control book was called "bioterrorism in the 21st century." and i talk a lot about how and why a bioterrorist might be

interested in developing these capabilities and how they may employ them. i try to think through ways that we might this incentivize a bioterrorist from wanting to do this. what i definitely worry about that, and i also worry about it more because with biotechnology, you know, back in 2000 it took a good bit of skill to do many of the steps that a bioterrorist would have to accomplish in order to develop a biological weapon. but today some of those requirements, those steps, have actually been democratized, have been made less challenging, because we actually have biotechnology's which can assist one in purifying a toxin or purifying a bacteria, growing it

in the proper conditions, purifying it so he can be harvested, then, you know, drying it. all of these capabilities are more relatively -- or more relevant -- are more readily available than they were 20 years ago, so i worry about this kind of issue. host: let's talk to robert, who is calling from hazzard, kentucky on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning to you. yes, sir, what do you think the role of nato and the u.s. could be if vladimir putin decides to use those chemical and biological weapons, and is that in nato and the u.s.'s play cards? i hope that is not in the play cards. and also, do you think russia would have invaded ukraine if the world had not experienced covid? i would like to hear your answer on both. thank you. guest: well, on the first part

of your question, you know, i would have to say that, you know, when one looks at, you know, what russia has done, you know, they have sort of, you know, going into a place where, you know, we are being very careful not to say that we are at war, nato, the united states is at war with russia. but having said that, he know, some of the outcomes that are occurring right now, such as a mass migration, which as of yesterday or so was up to 2 million people which are streaming into nato countries, you know, that is already affecting nato. when we talk about chemical and biological use i think it is entering into another very difficult space. you know, this question of, is it an -- a nato issue?

i would like to take you back to 1994, in bosnia was in the middle of a war and, you know, the united nations protection force was in there trying to do peacekeeping. that was not working very well, so u.s.-led initiative put in a nato-led force was undertaken. and that force when in in december of 1995. and so, this would not be the first time that nato has been involved in an out of sector type of operation. afghanistan was also out of sector. so, you know, if we think about that -- i'm not advocating either way. it is a serious discussion that needs to go on. but there is also the question of humanity. and, you know, how much can we expect to have nato and, you

know, the rest of the community of nations sit by while a country is being devastated? and the use of chemical and biological weapons really would take it up to a very new level. i don't think i want to go too much further. i certainly would not want to draw redlines that we are not prepared to enforce, and i think i will leave it at that. host: let's talk to alita, who is calling from seattle, washington on the republican line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i would like to ask mr. gerstein if he thinks that putin, being as insane as he is, would unleash these chemical weapons that they could actually reach the united states? guest: yeah, so, you know, a

couple of things. let me just put this into a different perspective. first, i don't see chemical weapons as something that would be fit on an internet continental -- an intercontinental ballistic missile. i don't think he has those stocks right now and i don't inc. he would want to go to that place. what i would say is that, you know, he started off by saying, you know, as insane as he is. i guess i would just say, as with other actors, very bad actors in some cases, even terrorists and such, we try to hesitate from calling people insane. we may not understand all of their rationale, but they may actually have some sort of rationale. you know, like the rest of the international community watching putin today, i certainly have grave concerns about his decision-making process.

and, you know, i hope that he does not begin to go further than he already has with respect to, particularly these types of weapons. you know, i don't want to say this too shockingly, but i feel that we are already in a nuclear confrontation with russia. for the past four weeks putin has been, what we call brandishing his nuclear forces. he has been talking about them. in the pre-invasion period he ran a nuclear exercise, which i think is very dangerous, because if we miscalculated, if he miscalculated, it could have actually resulted in some sort of nuclear weapons incident. so, you know, i'm very concerned about that. in addition, he has been taken

over two the real large nuclear power plants. chernobyl, which is no longer functional but is still needing to be tended to, and the zapper rita nuclear facilities, which is the largest nuclear facility in europe. so i have grave concerns about what he is doing. and, you know, i am hopeful, but, you know, open is one thing. seeing him responsible and not use weapons of mass destruction is quite another. host: we would like to thank arena corporation senior policy researcher daniel gerstein for coming on with us this morning and talking us through chemical and biological weapons and the invasion of ukraine. dan, thanks so much for your time this morning. guest: thanks, jesse. thanks for having me on. host: coming up later, we are going to talk more about ukraine.

in fact, we will talk public opinion with galen druke, the host and producer of fivethirtyeight's policy podcast. he will join us later for our spotlight on podcast segment. next we are going to go back to you and ask you what you think your concerns are about the russia-ukraine situation in our open forum segment. you see the numbers on screen. start calling in and we will come to your calls next. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪ >> if confirmed by the senate, judge ketanji brown jackson, president biden's nominee for associate justice of the supreme court, would become the first african-american woman to hold that position. sunday on q&a, renee jefferson,

professor of law at the university of houston and co-author of the book "shortlisted," talks about judge jackson's nomination and some of the women who have been considered for the high court. >> she was not only shortlisted by president reagan for the seat that went to o'connor, but he shortlisted her again. reagan could have given us more than one woman on the court. he had multiple vacancies. she wasn't shortlisted for the seat that ultimately went to justice kennedy. and she was shortlisted again, or at least her name was floated when the nomination for clarence thomas was at risk of not going forward. and so she was suggested as a possible solution to president george h.w. bush. and she was shortlisted again by president clinton for the very seat that justice breyer is now retiring from.

so, finally, decades later it will go to a black woman. >> renee jefferson, sunday night on q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our c-span now app. ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 1:00 p.m. eastern we bring you live coverage of the tucson festival of books. including retired u.s. army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, with his book "here, right matters carol anderson with her book "the second: race and guns in unequal america." and david johnston, author of "the big cheat." at 10:00 p.m.

eastern, lauren hubbard, chair of the george bush council of economic advisors talked about his book "the wall and the bridge." he argues government needs to invest more to offset job losses due to technology advances and globalization. he is interviewed by former international monetary fund chief economist kenneth rogoff. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. -- booktv.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are going back to our opening question. we want to know from you, what are your greatest concerns about the russia-ukraine conflict? we are going to open up our regular lines. that means democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, your line is (202) 748-8001.

independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. remember, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, come on twitter and facebook. before we get to your calls i want to get back to a little bit where we were talking about earlier with daniel gerstein earlier from the rand corporation. there is a story from cbs news that talks about what is going on with the chernobyl nuclear power plant. i want to bring you that story before we get to our calls. ukraine claimed on friday that russian president vladimir putin had ordered the preparation of a terrorist attack on the chernobyl nuclear power plant. the main electric supply to the plant, site of the 1986 explosion and meltdown data traumatized to the world, was cut off on wednesday, with

ukrainian authorities blaming russia's invading forces for the blackout and warning that it could lead to nuclear discharge. a ukrainian national emergency services agency said if power to the plants cooling systems -- which keeps spent nuclear fuel safely surrounded by water -- is not insured, it could create a radioactive cloud that would blow over other regions of ukraine, belarus, russia, and europe. belarus, russia, and europe. the u.n.-backed global watchdog agency, the iaea, downplayed concerns of an eminent radioactive release, saying the spent fuel was old enough and there was enough water around it in the cooling tanks to prevent a disaster, even without power. the iaea in ukrainian officials said backup diesel generators at the site would also be able to keep vital systems running for two to three days.

on thursday russia claimed the power supply cable had then restored by a team of engineers who crossed into ukraine from belarus. but the iaea and ukrainian officials said work to repair the line was ongoing. once again, this comes from cbs news, and their story was ukraine saying russia's prudent ordered a terrorist attack on chernobyl's nuclear plant. what are your top concerns about the russia-ukraine conflict? let's start with donald, who was calling from rome, texas on the democrat line. donald, good morning. caller: yes. host: donald, caller: are you there? caller:i am here. host: go ahead, donald. caller: my concern is this, that putin is not going to stop at ukraine. i think that he will go on into

poland, and i really think that we as a nation should go ahead and take him out. we have the capability to do that. i think that we need to go ahead and go ahead and take him out. host: all right, let's go to james, who is calling from corvallis, oregon on the republican line. james, good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, sir. host: go ahead, james. caller: i have a couple of concerns. the first one dealt with what you will -- you were talking about for this segment. a chemical/biological warfare. hello? host: you are still on james, go ahead.

caller: i graduated from the united states army chemical school. i spent 15 years in the united states army chemical corps. and i found it quite interesting earlier this week when the undersecretary of the united states spoke out and said united states has chemical bio labs in ukraine. why does the united states have bio labs in ukraine? host: all right, let's go to scotty, who is calling from eden, north carolina. scotty, good morning. caller: my concern is, how anybody can have some kind of dealings with -- with the

president of russia. and he has got to do with war crimes and all of that stuff, and i don't think he is going to stop there. i think he is going to mess with nato, and that is when a nuclear war will be going on. and you can't deal with russia, because -- i don't know what to say, but -- host: all right, let's go to carol, who is calling from livermore, california on the democrat line. carol, good morning. caller: yes, can you hear me? host: we can, go ahead, carol. caller: first of all i think the main concern with, maybe putin does not want to start in nuclear war, but he does not mind retaliating. and he is pushing and pushing

and pushing, he is daring somebody to stop him. and he doesn't have to stop because he says he is not going to stop. so what are we supposed to do, just keep gearing up and keep doing sanctions? then another thousand people over there to join the thousand people that are already there in poland and just keep sending personnel over little by little and dribbling it in and not be able to do the job of a serious strike? you know, somebody just said to take him out, but that is not necessarily an option. maybe it is, let him do what he wants to do, just get all of the ukrainian people out of there, that them get hosted, get them fostered in the rest of the country. let us fostered them. they might want to still live in ukraine. they want to still be ukrainians, but it is already,

like, ruined for them. have to live there, whatever happens good or bad. it's not going to be a good place to live there, under putin or after putin. and so is it selfish for ukraine , for the country of ukraine to insist on resisting, because they know this monster is not going to stop and it is just like sending bodies in to be killed? instead why don't they just give him up? instead of involving the whole world to take a stand against putin. and we know who he is. we know who putin is. he has always been the same. he always portray him the same way. we are calling him a war criminal now and we are going to investigate him for being a war criminal. we had trump in the white house for four years. we had trump having two russians

in the oval office having a private meeting with nobody around. it's like, who knows what does trump do. we know what he did in public for putin, kissing his butt. host: the washington post did a fact-check on the russian propaganda over the u.s. having bioweapon labs in ukraine and i want to bring a couple of paragraphs from their fact-check that explains what the united states was doing in ukraine so we can get specific information. this, once again, is from the "washington post." here are the specs of truth russian officials are using to spread propaganda. the labs were funded by the pentagon's defense threat reduction agency as part of its cooperative or logical engagement program. and the labs do study african swine fever, but with the aim of preventing its spread. at a 2017 conference hosted by

the dtra, for instance, a ukrainian official outlined laboratory efforts at improving the diagnosis, surveillance, and prevention of african swine fever in wild boar populations. another official discussed how ukrainian scientists had implemented a program to monitor certain soft takes, which transmit the disease. then a third official presented on efforts to trace tularemia and anthrax in animals such as wellbores. all of those efforts are in line with a statement posted on the website of the u.s. embassy in ukraine -- that the program helps ensure ukraine can detect and report out rates caused by dangerous pathogens. the united states in ukraine in 2005 had signed an agreement under the department of defense at no cost to ukraine would assist the ministry of health

and making sure that ukrainian labs studying diseases could not used develop -- to develop biological weapons and in better detecting, diagnosing, and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks. the united states has invested approximately $200 million in ukraine since 2005, supporting 46 ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites. the russian charges are unfounded, wrote biological threat expert philippa lentzos. last week a group of experts, including this author, visited the lugar center, by invitation of the georgian government. we were given access to all areas of the site, and interviewed staff, and concluded that the center demonstrates significant transparency. our group observed nothing out of the ordinary or that we would not expect to see in a legitimate facility.

nevertheless, despite the constant debunking, the russian propaganda that the united states has bioweapon labs in ukraine has taken root, especially on the right, with the invasion of ukraine commence. once again, that was a fact-check from the washington post on the russian propaganda that the u.s. has bio labs in ukraine. let's go to washington, d.c., democrat line. anthony, good morning. caller: yes, sir. wow, yeah. i am glad you picked me up. this is anthony. i don't believe that russians have no evidence. but be that as it may, what i am trying to point out in my phone calls, saying what you see about it. first, we have to remember

russia's only 100 miles away from the united states. two, what actually are we doing? i know russia had the of attacking us. it would be before 10 became the president, he was at ap press club, and said something very strange. don't forget, america, that we know your military is mightier than ours, but we can pick off four or five of your cities. and my city was one of them. i am not worried because i know we can protect ourselves. what i am worried about, being a democrat, we need to stand up to putin. even if we do not go inside the country itself, we need to have all europe heavily, heavily, heavily prepared for whatever putin might decide to do. i know he is nothing but a little boy, sorry to say, but i

am sure he will back off if he sees strength. host: let's go to raymond, calling from burlington, vermont on the independent line. raymond, good morning. raymond, are you there? caller: yes, can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead. caller: what we have to do here, there's two things i want to bring people attention stew. the fact that fort dietrich is well documented, which is right up the street, basically, from washington, d.c., as doing bio research for years. it's well-documented that they did do bio weapons research up until the 1970's. some of the stuff is still buried out there. the second point, i am asking the audience to look at the labs under you -- under ukraine, and to google gain of function research.

that's experimenting with these viruses to see exactly what they do and how they are doing it. even enhancing the viruses to make them available to see what would happen if an attack were to happen. the fact that no one's been watching this and this is so far away in you rain, what's even scarier, some of this has been done in our own backyards, suburban d.c. and other places. it's a cause for concern. though google data function research and the ukraine lab that is set up by front companies, and open your eyes as to what is actually going on and the fact that this is being done, even before the war. in a very urbanized area such as the ukraine and eastern europe by both sides. it is scary as heck.

host: let's go to tyrone, calling from carthage, illinois on the republican line good morning. caller: good morning. it's great to have a show like this, where people can voice their opinions about what's happening in the world. i would like to see more information on the war crime, what they are going to do about it as far as, are we going to go after prudent before or do we have to wait until the war is over? what kind of tactics are we going to use there? the other thing i am very concerned about, our president not saying more about what our offense is against them and what we can do to put the american people more at ease. that's really all i have. thank you so much. host: before we get our next caller, i want to bring a couple of rogue ramming the you.

on monday, the un security council will receive a briefing from poland's foreign minister, and the discussions will likely be focused around russia's invasion of ukraine. watch live here on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern you can watch it on c-span, online at c-span.org, or watch full coverage on the new c-span video app, c-span now. directly following that on monday at 11:00 a.m., there will be discussion on cyber attacks by russia during the ukraine invasion. that will be a discussion with senator mark warner, and -- the chair of the senate intelligence committee, and others. you will be able to watch that at 11:00 a.m. monday, eastern time on c-span two. you can watch it online at

c-span.org and watch it at all times on our free c-span video app, c-span now. let's go back to our phone lines and talked to james, calling from central florida on the democrat line. james, good morning. caller: good morning, jesse, how are you doing? host: i'm fine, go ahead, james. caller: i am glad your staff pulled up that information about the chemical warfare somebody called about, the lab in ukraine you just mentioned in 2018, they had specialists going and they are terrified that there is a chemical weapon, biological or anything like that. you have a great staff that is working with you to respond to the individual that called in.

i appreciate what you guys do. host: let's go to kenny, calling from byron, georgia on the independent line. good morning. caller: yeah. as you watch the conflict unfold, you will see people killing each other. i feel sad about my grandkids, and it makes you wonder about human rights. if we don't evolve to support peace in the world, we will be the planet of the apes. thank you. host: let's go to frank in florida, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? host: i'm fine. go ahead, frank. caller: i am a retiree, a veteran of the u.s. army, and i will say one thing first of all -- history will repeat it though.

just like history teacher was talking about, russia, earlier in the program, russia and china are now allies. they have been on this planet for 4000, 5000 years and they have always been known to be very --. china had numerous wars against one another, the russians have always been very oppressive to their population, and i'm trying to tell you that we better watch ourselves, he prepared for the worst, because things are not getting better. we are having problems in our own country, with congress taking care of its own people, and we've got to start to understand that this is not going to end. two years ago, the chinese, in my opinion, sent out x amount of people all over the world, the only time, the only race on this

planet where every single people were affected with a virus, killing millions and millions and millions of people. the russians now, being that they are allies, they have always been treacherous. before i and my conversation, the russians, during world war ii and after world war ii, they put them to sleep, and mccarthy wanted to go after the chinese in the korean war, and they stopped him and retired him because he wanted to definitely go after them. two generals this country had, they put them away. when they put to sleep and the other they retired. host: let's go to mitch, calling from ohio on the republican line. caller: yes, i wanted to call in

and talk about all this stuff going on throughout the world. i think what we need to do at this point, we need to send some special ops people and through nato to get to this guy. if we don't do it, we are going to be in some real trouble. thank you. host: let's go to jeff, calling from connecticut on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling to say that the chemicals they are talking about with russia and ukraine is a total farce. this is just propaganda for them to use their chemical and biological weapons on the ukrainian population. what we need to do is bring special operations people in their and have something done to putin and his local thugs,

because there is something going on over there that we are not even knowing about, secret bombings, orphanages and everything, when you could see all that live. there are also assassinations. this is crazy in the year 2022, this is happening. that's all i've got to say about that, and i think we should do something to stop this as soon as possible. thank you. host: let's go to baltimore, maryland, the independent line. am i pronouncing your name correct lee? are you there? hello -- all right -- let's go to andrew, calling from ingleside, texas on the republican line. andrew, good morning. caller: well, i am a veteran of world war ii, the korean war, and the vietnam war.

we didn't target civilian folks taking care of business. this guy putin, who is ram rotting the show over in europe now, someone needs to take that dude out. he's is killing women and children and throwing them in ditches and covering them up with -- it's shameful, how the world is standing by and letting this idiot kill all the people off over there, and it's just not right. i helped take care of business in world war ii, korea and vietnam, and we did not target billions, women and children. i would just like to say, thanks

for taking my call and i wish the world would step up and stop this idiot. host: let's go to victor, calling from silver spring, maryland on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i hope you guys will carry the trump rally tonight. i will be looking forward to hearing it. my comment is, if you really want to hurt the russians really bad, and i don't understand why the demo rats can't see this -- we need to open up our oil wells, our gas wells, finish building the keystone pipeline, but i just don't understand why aoc and the other watermelons just don't understand that oil and gas can be our weapon. the comment about buying an electric car? they cost at least $55,000.

how do you charge the battery? a coal generated power plant will charge your electric car. that makes no sense what weber. thank you. host: if you are interested in programming on c-span, you can check out our website, and it will tell you what we have coming up after the show and throughout the rest of the day. coming up next, we will talk about public opinion of the russian invasion of ukraine with the host and producer of the 530 eight politics podcast. he will join us for this week's spotlight on podcast segment in just one moment. stick with us, we will be right back. ♪ >> this week on the c-span networks, both chambers of congress are in session. the house votes to revoke

russia's normal permanent trade relations in response to the ongoing invasion of ukraine. they will also take on the emergency coronavirus pandemic relief though. they also vote on the confirmation of the white house budget director. in the foreign minister who chairs the circular ready -- chairs the -- in europe briefs about the ongoing invasion in ukraine and other issues. and state department official testified before the senate foreign relations committee on the u.s. response to the rise and authoritarianism around the. on wednesday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3, senior civilian and pentagon officials discuss activity before the house armed services committee. and on c-span.org and the c-span now free video app, the defense department intelligence leaders testify before the house armed services committee. watch next week, live on the

c-span networks or on c-span now, our free mobile video out. also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live and on-demand any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> i am pleased to nominate dutch -- judge jackson, who will bring extraordinary qualifications to the courts. >> i am humbled by the extraordinary honor of this nomination and i am especially great for the care that you have taken in discharging your constitutional duty to the service of our democracy with all that is going on in the world today. >> president biden nominates judge ketanji brown jackson for the district of columbia circuit to succeed retiring justice

stephen breyer on the supreme court. if confirmed, she will become the first african-american woman to serve on the nation's highest art. follow this historic process. watch the confirmation hearing, starting monday, march 20 first, live on c-span, c-span.org, or by downloading the free c-span now mobile video app. "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with the host and producer of 530 eight's politics podcast, and he is here with us this morning to discuss the podcast and public opinion as it relates the russia-you rain -- russia-ukraine conflict and president biden's stance. good morning. guest: good morning, thanks for having me. host: first of all, remind our audience why it is called 538? guest: our website and podcast

is called 538 podcast, because that the number of electors there are in the electoral college. that's how we elect our presidents in the united dates, and 538 spends a lot of time covering elections and trying to map the probability that one candidate or another will win. our elections in the united states are complicated in part, precisely because we elect our presidents through the electoral college and not directly. host: tell us about the podcast. when did you start it and what does it focus on? we know it is a politics podcast, but do you focus on anything in particular? guest: absolutely. we started at the beginning of 2016, which i'm sure as many folks can remember, was a very newsy year. we were in the middle of the primaries at that point and we tracked the 2016 election and

have been running ever since. what we do on the podcast and the website, we use data journalism, essentially, to find answers and get a little bit those are to the truth, better understand the world around us. what data journalism is is using data analysis and the scientific method, but really just evidence to try and help us better understand the world. i can give you an example. if you want to tell a story about whether rent prices are going up in a particular city, you can call up a few friends or post in a facebook chat room, hey, do you know people whose rent has gone up? you can write a story based on the five responses you get that yes, people's rent has gone up. what we like to do is get population wide data. you want to look at data sets across all the neighborhoods in the city, regardless of whether the person happens to be in the facebook chat room. is there rent going up? we try to get data that captures everyone in that of just a few

people. host: so you say you are using data for your podcast. do you also do interviews? who do you talk to when you decide to do your interviews? guest: absolutely. we do lots of interviews, we have roundtable discussions, we try to keep it amicable and friendly and conversational. we sometimes talk to politicians, but often, politicians like to stay on message and it can be difficult to get them off message and get the underlying realities of american politics and the complexities of it all. we like to talk to experts in the field, other journalists, all kinds of folks. people who, at the end of the day, can give us a better understanding of the world around us, or at least that's what i hope to do. my job is to be curious and ask questions and get us closer to that truth.

host: one of your latest podcasts is called, how to think about the risk of nuclear war. who did you talk to for that podcast and what data can you find about this risk of nuclear war? guest: we spoke to james acton at the carnegie center, and essentially, what we discovered, when meters are making decisions about nuclear war, they are not thinking probabilistically, in terms of do i take this step, this might put us closer to nuclear war. or this might take us farther away from the likelihood of new year war. there are ways you can think about it in the abstract probabilistically, but they can say, no one is willing to use nuclear weapons, i can escalate and escalate and escalate, and neither side will use nuclear weapons. there are some lawmakers who are more hawkish on russia and ukraine than others, because maybe they don't fear as much

the eventuality of a nuclear conflict. whereas the use of nuclear weapons is a reality and its weren't to not escalate in order to avoid that. oftentimes, leaders are not using probabilistic thinking when addressing the risks of nuclear war. host: let me remind our viewers that they can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up our lines. democrats, you can call (202) 748-8000. republicans, your number is (202) 748-8001. independence, your number is (202) 748-8002. remember, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are also reading on twitter, at @cspanwj, and facebook, at facebook.com/cspan. you have been talking to

americans about their opinions of the russia-ukraine conflict. what do americans think of the russia-ukraine conflict? where do americans stand, according to the work you have done? guest: we in general do not conduct polls, but we look at polls across the spectrum and try to average them to get a better picture of what americans are thinking in general. but pollsters do the hard work of being out in the field and calling hundreds of people, trying to get answers to get the bottom of what americans think. the reason we care about this, we live in a democracy and ultimately, what americans think really matters. we should all care what americans think, particularly because we live in a democracy. when it comes to the russia-ukraine conflict, overwhelmingly, across party lines, there is not a party split on this. americans support ukraine, do not support russia, do not support vladimir putin, the

president of russia. we have seen positions within the republican party leadership in terms of how they are talking about putin and some in the media, but you don't see that amongst republican voters. it is somewhere in the range of 5% of republican voters who actually support or have a positive view of president putin. in general, americans support the economic sanctions that we have levied against russia, overwhelmingly we see big majorities. we also see there were big majorities for banning the import of russian oil, a step president biden took this week. in general, americans do not want to send u.s. troops into ukraine. we see somewhere in the range of 30% to 40% of americans hold that view, certainly not a majority. host: when you look at polls about americans outside the beltway, what is it like here in washington?

are americans united and his congress united on what should be done about the russia-ukraine conflict? guest: in a way that we have not seen in some time in american politics, in general, lawmakers and the partisan media and americans are united on this. we really don't like what russia is doing and think what happens in ukraine is an atrocity, and we want to take strong measures to respond. republicans will say that the criticism of biden's, this would never have happened if this is a stronger -- he was a stronger leader to begin with. i am sure there are plenty of republican voters who believe that, whereas democratic voters wouldn't view biden in such a light. in general in washington, there are a number of senators, mostly on the republican side, who support sending polish warplanes into ukraine, which is not a step that the white house has

been willing to take, so there are some in washington pushing for more military aid then we have given so far, but in general, in broad strokes, this is an area somewhat unique in american politics where there is a lot of agreement on how the u.s. should be responding and where our earning should be in response to russia. host: what is the opinion of the role that u.s. and nato have taken so far in the conflict? guest: that's a complicated question. as i have laid out, americans broadly support the steps that this administration has taken in order to response to russia, overwhelmingly support economic sanctions and at the same time, do not support sending troops. so that's what biden has done. but actual views of how the white house has performed on russia are very different. 80% of americans support banning russian oil, it's not like 80%

of americans think biden is doing a good job handling this crisis. it somewhere in the range of 46% of americans to 50 picks percent -- 56% of americans saying that biden is handling this crisis well, whereas the rest are saying he is not handling it well. when you think -- when you ask americans, do you think biden is doing a good job? he gets a lower response. their response to the ukraine crisis has been more generally positive then how americans view him, somewhere of the range of two thirds of americans supporting him. host: let's let our viewers take part in this discussion. mark, calling from washington state on the independent line. i am not even going to try to pronounce the name of your town. pronounce it for us. caller: hopefully him -- hoq

uium. i would like to talk about the electoral college. we have had a border fence for about 50 years, and the democrats are creating sanctuary cities which are preventing the lawful prosecution of people who have entered this country and are breaking the law. why is this important? it's because they are counted in the electoral college. over 17 million illegals are being counted in the electoral college to define the congressional districts. that's the reason why the democrats now have the house. they are using race baiting to divide the country. as mr. trump pointed out so clearly, if you don't have a border, you don't have a country. again, the real reason this is important, the population of the united states will go up 35% by 2050. a mere 28 years from now. if we cut back on every single

thing, the increase in population from illegals will overdo and make all our progress on climate nil. that makes mr. trump in the border the green president. thank you so much. host: your response, galen? guest: you know, the way the congressional districts, that we use to assign electors to the electoral college is complicated and skewed in certain ways. there are people in congressional districts who don't vote and are not legally allowed to vote. that includes immigrants in the country illegally, and it also includes prisoners and children. prisoners can't vote, children can't vote. they get counted in the senses, obviously, and congressional districts are allotted accordingly. parts of the country have lots

more children than other parts of the country. this is a complicated question, and there are folks on the right who say we should be drawing congressional districts that exclude people who cannot legally vote. we should equalize districts across the country based on theo can vote. of course, that question gets complicated when you say that would exclude immigrants in the country illegally, what that exclude children, or prisoners. that is not the argument i have heard from the rights, but maybe there are people who would support that as well. host: lori from hamburg, pennsylvania on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i was wondering what your opinion is on the polarization of politics in the united states and what crucial part that plays in our national security? guest: of course.

so, the united states has become increasingly polarized over the past three plus decades, and i think that we have seen that adversaries view our degree of polarization as a weakness. we have evidence from the 2016 election that our political divides were in some ways used by an adversary to further divide us. that is not wide from won the election, i do not think that -- that is not why that trump bank won the election -- why trump won the election. it was voters in accordance with how electors are signed -- assigned wanted him to be the president of the united states. of course, there are adversaries who see these division as a weakness, and they have grown over time. what is important to understand is that while the united states is very polarized, we can get a little bit too caught up in that narrative sometimes.

the vast majority of americans and this might apply to you when you are watching a politics show on a saturday morning, do not really like politics or engage in partisan politics. thanks about on twitter or in cable news, they really just want to live their lives and focus on the things that are immediate to their well-being, which is jobs, children, families, parents, community, religion, and things like that. while we are divided and we have grown more divided over time, some academic studies show that in the range of 80% of americans are not engaged in that kind of partisan bickering, the stereo hyper partisan views that we see reflected on the news or on twitter. i would keep in mind for people who might be thinking that america is hopelessly divided, that is not necessarily true in

the way that you see it reflected sometimes. host: one of the things i have to remind my journalism students is that america is not twitter. just because what they see on twitter all the time does not accurately reflect what all of america is thinking. they want to jump into politics but i have one more russia and ukraine question that i want you to address. do we have any reliable information on what the average russian citizen thinks or knows about what is going on in ukraine right now? guest: that is an important question because how this crisis is ultimately resolved will have a lot to do with the pressures that putin himself faces in the conflict. at first blush you might think russia is an authoritarian country and people would be afraid to tell the truth. academics have studied this and tried to use polls in ways to remove bias when they ask about

putin or certain aspects of russian life. what they have found is that while they might be slightly biased, russian polls inside russia are genuinely -- generally reliable. what we see out of russia is that putin is popular and this war is popular. according to one center, the approval rating is about 71% and only a quarter of russians does approve of him. in terms of the war it is somewhere between 50 to 55% of russian supported and only one quarter say they do not support it. you might be thinking, ok, so academics suggested that that is correct. why would putin be so popular? someone who we have seen has caused misery and loss of life throughout ukraine? the answer is in part because russians are not seeing the same thing that you are seeing. in authoritarian countries and countries that have state run media they see a very curated

view. they receive misinformation and propaganda that spends the conflict in a certain way. while russians may support the war and putin, it might not be based on full and accurate information and almost certainly is not. as a result we see that also in polls, 60% of russian say that nato and the u.s. instigated this conflict and 3% say that russia instigated this conflict. now, there are important reasons that some of this could change as the conflict goes on which i can talk about. that is where the situation stands right now. host: has putin become more popular or less popular during these last two weeks? guest: so, we do not have polling from yesterday on putin's approval, but we see in the months leading up to his conflict -- to this conflict putin became more calculator --

popular and that tracks with the trend of his approval rating. when russia annexed crimea and invaded georgia in 2008, we saw his approval rating spike. oftentimes russians approve of these exercises because of the way that putin frames them and the pride and russia and so on. we see his approval rating fall at the at times when the economy is in trouble. russia tried to monetize it state benefits in the to thousands and we saw a significant -- in the 2000's and we saw a significant backlash. we do not know where things will go in terms with how russians approve or the war -- of putin or the war is because this will become more complicated than the role that ukraine plays. because the russian economy is struggling based on economic sanctions that the west has levied against it. we see the ruble pressing -- crashing and western businesses

are leaving. and there are restrictions on taking out cash from banks. and so, if the economy suffers there is a chance that putin's approval rating could fall and a support for the war could fall. it also matters how this is viewed in the context of is the west being antagonistic towards russia and we need to stay strong and this is a sacrifice that we are willing to pay? that is the question and we will have to wait and see. host: let us jump across the atlantic and go from vladimir putin talking about joe biden. how popular or unpopular has joe biden become during these last two weeks after russia invaded ukraine? guest: as of today according to our avril -- average of polls at fivethirtyeight.com. he has a majority of americans disapproving of the job he is doing. that is by a slim margin.

that is not a good performance. historic -- historically speaking trump and ford have approval ratings that were about that low at this point in the presidency. i think trump was two points lower and ford was one point higher. it is not a good position to be in. his improve his approval rating has improved over the past few weeks of this -- as this conflict has played out. his overall approval rating has ticked up by two to 2.5 points. that is because i mentioned that americans have more positive than negative views about how biden has reacted to the crisis in ukraine. now, there are reasons that he could become more popular as time goes on and their reasons he could become less popular. also the ukraine crisis is not the only thing affecting how americans view biden. there is the state of the covid

pandemic, the economy, inflation, and things like that. so far the majority of americans have said that they are willing to ban russian oil, even if it means that the gas prices go up. 60% of americans hold that view. we will see if they've still feel that way. -- if they still feel that way. americans are willing to make sacrifices to levy sanctions against russia. host: letting our viewers jump in again, christine from illinois on the independent line. good morning. caller: i do not think this survey is doing us much good because we have an election in november, and many people are thinking more about that election than this crisis. and any numbers you get really reflect more on that than anything else. and -- that is all i have to

say. guest: that is a good point to a certain extent in that yes, the media is largely focused on the crisis in ukraine and ultimately there are other things when american -- that americans will consider when they vote. in polls, 80% of americans say they are following what is happening in ukraine. that is a lot of people. if you do a survey across the media landscape there is large agreement in terms of how we feel about this conflict and how it is being portrayed on tv. that can be a powerful thing. will the ukraine crisis still be shaping public opinion come november, it might not be. maybe we should all hope that it is not, we should all hope that it is resolved and remain -- and ukraine remains a sovereign, democratic country. i am not a fortune teller so i cannot tell you that. we know that the economy, inflation, and covid are shaping

how americans view biden and partisanship overall is shaping how americans view biden. we have become more polarized as a country and as that has happened fewer americans are willing to, if you are a republican say you approve of a democratic president or democrat approve of a republican president. there is some baked and guardrails about help unpopular or popular a president can be as a result of that. host: harold calling from mount pleasant, michigan on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just thought i would give you a call and some of my views on the issues going on. i think that the history -- americans do not know much about ukraine but they have a long history of independence from russia, especially in the 20's when they supported the tsar, and they were can -- they were

expected to be the white russians and in the great slaughter millions and millions of white russians were starved to death. america has always pulled itself together in times of crisis. if we are viewing this crisis as an international effect, -- international threat, americans will rally to protect the country and biden's support should increase, which i am surprised it has not. i think most americans do not view it as a threat to this country. so that is about all i have to say, thank you for taking my call. guest: i think you are right that most americans do not view it as a threat to the contrary directly. if you pull americans -- poll americans they have different views on how america should respond if russia attacks a nato country. when you do surveys about how should rot -- how should america

respond if russia attacks other countries. as it gets closer to home and as we ask about countries that we have sort of maybe a closer history with or lots of immigration from, american views changed to be more supportive -- more supportive of responding with force. when you are talking about whether or not american support biden throughout all of this? in times of war there is a phenomenon in public opinion called the rally around the flag effect, which is where a lot of american support whoever the current leader is or lots of civilians support whoever the current leader is across party lines. that happened with george w. bush in the aftermath of 9/11. close to 90% of american supported bush even though a year prior there was a big question on who had won the election. we do not see that in the united states today and part of the reason is one, people do not

feel that this is a direct threat to united states sovereignty. also, it only happens when there are not loud opposition voices to the current leadership. we see that while lots of republicans might be in agreement and terms of sanctions there is plenty of criticism of the president in terms of are we using enough force? was ukraine invaded in the first place because biden was not strong enough as a leader. there were already negative views about biden's handling of foreign affairs because of the withdrawal from afghanistan. those are some of the reasons we are not seeing a rally around the flag effect. if you want an example, look at president volodymyr zelenskyy who is experiencing an approval rating above 80% because ukrainians feel that the sovereignty of their nation is under attack and basically all opposition has gone away. if a year ago there was a debate on how to pay for health care, all of a sudden that is not at

the forefront, it is basically fending off the russians and following volodymyr zelenskyy's lead. that is a good example of what you are talking about. host: earlier you told us you are not a fortuneteller, but can you tell us what the midterm elections coming up look like right now. the republicans have the ability to take back the house or senate? guest: i am not a fortuneteller or a betting man. if i was i would bet that republicans will their least take back the house. why do i say that? first of all president biden is not popular. and unpopular presidents do not do well at the midterms. their party does not do well. the only have two examples in postwar america during which a president's party gained seats at midterms in 1998 and 2002.

1998 the approval rating was around 685% because basically americans thought that republicans were going too far in trying to impeach him and so rally to support him. 2002 was the aftermath of 9/11 and bush's approval rate was 67%. we should not expect given that, unless such changes dramatically, democrats to be gaining seats. there is also other evidence that would suggest that the democrats will not do well. if you look at other elections that have happened like the governors elections in new jersey or virginia, though shifted from about 12 points between 2020 and 2021. biden won virginia by 10 points. len wanted -- glenn youngkin won by 12 points. we do not expect a nationwide

shift this fall, but we should expect some movement in the direction of the republican party. i should say that republicans only need to win five seats in the house in order to take control of the chamber. this is not just me using these numbers to say this, i think a lot of democrats themselves think that they are headed towards a poor performance. historically we see that a lot of lawmakers from the party that expects to do poorly retire in the run-up. we have seen dozens of democrats retire and democrats in congress have been talking in terms of this is our last shot with full control of washington to get whatever legislation we want past. it might be a different story in the senate, but as far as the house is concerned, unless the political environment changes dramatically we should expect republicans to take control of the chamber. host: let us get into the senate. what do you see happening? guest: the senate is more

complicated because only one third of the seats are up each cycle. so, unlike the house where every house eat america will have an election this fall, only one third of senate seats well. it depends which states are holding senate elections that year how the party is going to perform. this map this fall for democrats is a little more advantageous than the house map is, a nationwide map because they are either sort of not defending that many seats, that many. and have some potential opportunities for pickups. again, i should say we should not expect that democrats are going to hold the senate, but they have a better chance of holding the senate than they do the house. we will be looking at races in particular in arizona, georgia, pennsylvania to try and see who is going to ultimately control

the senate. host: let us get back into our callers. this is a call from daly city, california on the democrat line. caller: wars do not start by one leader. it is really shameful to see the 21st century after two world wars that have a war again. backing the leaders are the people who build the equipment of war and they want to use them because the warehouses are really full, so we need someone to come and wake us up, and look for the hungry kids, first sickness, and stop really having war.

we can have -- god help all of us, thank you for listening to me. host: go ahead and respond if you need to. guest: i mean, that is a great point. no one likes war and while i might be for -- referring to all of these numbers and how americans and russians are thinking about it. at the end of the day there is more to understanding the conflict and the numbers. it is a tragedy and we are seeing it play out on tv screens across the country. and no amount of trying to decipher the poles or whatever will really convey what ukrainians are experiencing, which is just absolute terrible loss of life and horror, millions of people are displaced. it is quite frankly sad, and we should not lose track of that when focusing on numbers and things like that.

i appreciate the call. host: let us talk to missy, from bloomfield, iowa on the independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a couple of statements and questions. one is that we did not hear anything about the research labs in ukraine until putin was able to get in there and get the paperwork out of their and show them to the american people. number two i would like to talk about how the democrats are trying to put pressure on big pharma and removing their pharmaceutical facilities out of russia and not allowing the russian people to get medication anymore. isn't that a little backwards? taking it out on people when it is the government that is doing things? host: go ahead and respond. guest: so i should say that this

is not my area of expertise. i know in the last hour you did fact checking about the research lab in ukraine and i know you can refer back that check that you read from "the washington post." ultimately i will say that in terms of sympathy for russia in this conflict, you will find very little of it among the american people. as i mentioned at the beginning, while there may be some division among republican leadership and in republican aligned media, republican voters by in large do not think that russia is in the right in this conflict, do not support your viewpoint -- viewed favorably president putin, and that is a very marginal view in american life today. across party lines the vast majority of americans believe that russia is the aggressor and do not support what the country or leader is doing. host: as you mentioned in the

previous hour we talked about how the white house has called the russian propaganda push of u.s. biolabs in ukraine to be propaganda and lies. "the washington post" like you mentioned today fact-check which you can find on their website. let us go to jeff from pennsylvania on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. was there a new budget that was just past for this fiscal year with a 21% raise in the budget? and who does that benefit. thank you very much for taking my call. guest: do you want to jump -- host: do you want to jump on the budget question. guest: in terms of who that benefits that is a big question where you would have to parse through a lot of reporting. so it is not a question that i can help answer for you. but i am sure that lots of

people have different views on how the white house and congress are doing in terms of spending. you know, i think that right now when it comes to the economy, we have been talking a lot about holding on ukraine, but when it comes to polling on the economy, americans are not happening. in pew and gallup polling, two groups that do a lot of surveys and ask americans what are you thinking about and what are you most concerned about, the economy ranks highly. when gallup asked among all the different issues you are worried about what are you most worried about, inflation comes up the most. and so as far as government spending plays a role in inflation and people debate this. there a lot of reasons we might be experiencing inflation, one of them are supply chain issues related to the pandemic. fed policy, government stimulus spending, and so this is

something that politicians will have to contend with. i think the democrats know it and biden has been talking about inflation. there is a recent poll that showed two thirds of americans do not think the white house is doing enough to address inflation. when two thirds of americans support something that means people who even learn to -- lean towards the democratic column hold that view. there is in some sense a bipartisan consensus and has been that the white house has not been doing enough to battle inflation. host: we talked about the midterm elections so let us look ahead to the 2024 presidential election. is former president trumped the presumptive nominee for the republican party? guest: at this point in time, we see that in very early polls trump leads the field. that has one million caveats.

we probably should not be paying attention to republican presidential primary polling this early in the cycle, at the very beginning of 2022. to give you some example, in 2014 poles were not even including president trump in their surveys. he would go on to win the republican nomination. now, this is a very particular circumstance. it is a very rare situation in which a one term president who has lost reelection is eligible for a second term, and seems to want it. it seems like if he does run there will be a lot of support for him amongst republicans. but there will still be some time before that eventuality happens. two years from now is when americans will be deciding, republicans in particular, deciding who they want the nominee to be. a lot can change in two years, a lot have -- has changed in over

a year that biden has been president. we have seen that some of trump's favorability numbers and approval has slipped a bit. and there are lots of republican politicians vying to be an alternative for the republican party. we see ron desantis as one of those voices. glenn youngkin, the governor of virginia is someone who is trying to put a more modest grid -- moderate spent on republican politics and he was successful in virginia lou -- using that. you have to wait some time before you can really make any realistic predictions about who the republican nominee will be. all of that said, he has basically near universal name recognition. the majority of republicans do not like him. and if you wants to be the republican nominee, he has a good shot at getting there. host: let us go back to the

phone lines with cornelia from cottonwood, idaho on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i was just going to mention that i -- i am just appalled at our president's reaction to the war in ukraine. russia attacking ukraine. it says in scripture that you shall not stand idly by when your neighbor's life is in danger. and, certainly ukraine and other countries as well. we cannot take care of everything, but they have asked for mig's and poland was ready to said that -- was ready to send them and mr. biden nixed that opportunity. i do not understand it, it is crazy. i think that if americans feel secure, we should feel very

insecure. host: we are running out of time so respond very quickly. guest: i am happy to respond. around 30% to 40% say that the u.s. should get involved militarily meeting the vast majority of americans do not we should get involved militarily, and of course giving that kind of aid or even enforcing a no-fly zone would essentially lead to a direct conflict between the u.s. and russia both of which are nuclear superpowers. in general leaders are trying to avoid a situation in which the u.s. and russia are in a direct conflict because that could be bad for everyone. i would say that in past conflicts we see that the u.s. only really gets involved militarily where there is over -- when there is overwhelming support for doing so. that is not the case right now. we will see how this evolves over time, but for now americans do not want u.s. troops getting involved, and there is a chance

that through certain measures that we take and military aid host: host: that we get closer. we would like to thank galen druke the host and producer of fivethirtyeight's talking us through public opinion on russia-ukraine, the political situation in the united states and the upcoming midterm elections. thank you so much. guest: happy to do it. thank you for having me. host: we want to thank all of you for another great edition of "washington journal." we will be back again tomorrow morning. continue to wash your hands and have a great saturday, 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 comcast. >> it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with community centers to create wi-fi lists so students can get what they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> c-span's "washington journal ." every day, we are taking your calls live, on the air and with the news of the day and the policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, ian johnson on the council of foreign relations discusses china's and russia's growing alliance. a scientist, historian and

author on the history of nuclear anxiety in america. watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern sunday morning on c-span or c-span now, our free mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages and tweets. >> this week on the c-span networks, both chambers of congress are in session. in response to an ongoing invasion of ukraine. they will take up the $15.6 billion emergency coronavirus pandemic relief bill. the senate votes on white house budget director. monday at 10:00 eastern on c-span. the minister who chairs -- the ongoing humanitarian crisis stemming from russia's invasion of ukraine and other issues.

tuesday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span, state department officials testify on the u.s. response to the rise in authoritarianism around the globe. wednesday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3, military pentagon officials discuss activity in europe before the house arms forces. intelligence leaders testified before the house armed services committee. watch next week live on the c-span networks or on c-span now, our free mobile video app. head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to stream video live or on-demand anytime. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ >> c-span now is a free mobile app featuring your unfiltered view of what is happening in