carolina, "life, liberty and carolina, "life, liberty and levin" is next. ♪ ♪ bill: i'm bill hemmer. a flurry of diplomacy and the drum beat of war. will russia invade ukraine? >> as of this moment i am convinced. bill: the president calls output * over unkept promises of a military drawdown. >> our strength must not be underestimate. bill: the secretary of defense meeting with leaders in the

region. >> i am here today not to start a war, but to prevent one. bill: we'll get the state of plate from pentagon press secretary john kirby. then we'll get reaction from nor ted cruz. and we'll ask our sunday panel wet there is pane offramp for putin. >> this is cotulla, texas. many of the major issues that are a huge part of what goes opening in southwestern texas run through this town. >> home of the first in the nation primary right here on "fox news sunday." fears of war intensify as the standoff between western allies

and russia enters a pivotal phase. the ukrainian president has called for a meeting with putin. but the president is he with believes putin has decide to invade. we discuss the new assessment with pentagon press secretary john kirby. steve hair gains on the ground in kyiv. mike tobin in ukraine where troops will been deployed by the thousands. but first mark meredith. >> the president says he believes war between russia and ukraine is still preventable if as the u.s. and its allies race to find a diplomatic end.

>> it's not too late to return to the negotiating table. >> vice president kamala harris delivered a similar message telling volodymyr zelensky in a face-to-face meeting. >> we have allies and partner toes speak with one voice. reporter: but zelensky implored the u.s. and its allies not to wait for sanctions. >> what are you waiting for? reporter: a white house official tells fox the white house is already responding by providing military aid and sanctions that would potentially cripple

russia's economy. putin oversaw submit drills which included showcasing his country's nuclear ability. reporter: we are expecting a big meeting later this week when the secretary of state and tony blinken will meet with russia's foreign minister in europe. that may be the last chance this administration has to prevent war. bill: i want to turn to steve harrigan life in kyiv. >> for some people here the war has already begun. shelling in the east where ukrainian soldiers oppose russian-backed separatists increase with two ukrainian soldiers killed saturday. russia ordered an evacuation with a diewbous warning that

russia plans to attack. we are taking enough food for one day she says, we don't know when we'll be back. the old and young grab what they can carry and flee to russia. putin promised evacuees $130 each. >> it means crushing the national currency, he says, money being taken out. can you live in that kind of country? can you have stability? no. inwithout an invasion -- even without an invasion ukraine's economy takes new hits each day. germany has told its citizens to leave and lufthansa has canceled flights there. bill: mike tobin in poland.

reporter: the task of u.s. soldiers is described as multiif the ready. most of these soldiers are from the 101st airborne. given their history in europe, the presence of these paratroopers is intended to send a message that america stands with its allies. here is secretary lloyd austin. >> whenever we place an american soldier somewhere, it demonstrates our resolve, our commit to the our partners. so i would say you are our greatest ambassadors. reporter: we spent some time in a border town yesterday. the people there are scared.

they believe if russia takes ukraine, that putin will keep coming for more. millions of refugees accumulate on the border, they don't believe they can accommodate them. bill: joining us exclusively. pentagon press secretary john kirby. welcome back to "fox news sunday." you are just back from western europe. do they believe an invasion is as likely as president biden does? >> the leaders we met with in brussels and lithuania and poland, they all see the situation the way we do. russia continues to make itself ready for another invasion of ukraine. they are equally alarmed about it as we have been. bill: friday president biden said he was convinced it would happen. then late on saturday the white house statement that was put outset it could invade.

that language might be sliced but it might be significant and softer too. is it? >> we have been saying for weeks now that mr. putin continued to add to his capabilities and give himself options. we said it could happen any day now. we have been consistent about that. some of this is in plain sight. you can see it through commissioner satellite imagery. he continues to uncoil his forces and make them ready to strike at any moment. i don't think we are hammering over individual pieces of rhetoric here. what we are seeing actually happen is mr. putin act on what looks to be very clear intentions to invade ukraine again. bill: he left his country for munich, then went home to his country last night without issue in were fears if putin wanted to lock him out of his country he

would have done that. >> it's hard to know what mr. putin is thinking at any given moment. he has a huge array of military forces around ukraine. he has a lot of options available to him. we wouldn't want to speculate that just because in zelensky is out of the country that that is his moment. he has options available to him. one of the options is diplomacy. we hope that's the option he chooses when his foreign minister gets to sit down with secretary blinken later in the week. bill: president zelensky said if you are telling me 100 per per it's going to happen, what are you waiting for. >> they are going to be unprecedented.

i mean this as a strong message to mr. putin and use it as a deterrent. he has not conducted another invasion in ukraine, and we think there is time to prevent that. if you punish somebody for something they haven't done yet, they might as well go ahead and do it. we are holding that in abeyance and hope that can affect mr. putin. bill: can you characterize how much activity there is behind the scenes to give putin taken offramp? >> there has been a lot. you showed the full court press by this administration to try to find a diplomatic step forward. we made serious proposals. about ways we can change things that we are doing in europe to try to address the situation there and try to address some of mr. putin's concerns.

some things are clearly off the table. but we have made serious proposals and we want the russians to respond in kinds. bill: what is off the table? >> the issue of ukraine's membership in nato is an issue for ukraine and nato. that's not something mr. putin can institute a veto over or decide for himself. that's between the alliance and ukraine. bill: what is on the table? what are we willing to give him? >> we made serious proposals changing the scope and scale of some of our exercises in europe. talking about offensive missile capabilities in europe. we put forward other proposals to try to convince mr. putin that we are serious. bill: what has the administration learned from the chaos out of kabul last august.

chaos out of kabul last august. >> we are still digesting what happened in august. i suspect your question is trying to get at anything we learned from august that we are trying to apply now, they are two very different circumstances. there is not a lot of parallel between what we are seeing in ukraine and what we saw in afghanistan. we were ending a 20-year war and dealing with a massive evacuation of 122,000 people in a matter of two week. this is trying to prevent a war from happening. all of our administration officials have been out and about trying to find a diplomatic path forward and shoring up our nato allies and making sure we know we are with them and article 5 is something we take seriously. bill: what would secretary

blinken say then that he has not already? >> i won't speak for the secretary of state. i work at the pentagon. but i suspect mr. blinken will make clear that we are serious about trying to find a diplomatic path forward. we are serious about wanting to avert a war. and make it clear if russia does this, they do it with diplomatic options left on the table. they won't have an excuse that merits any credibility. they will choose this war and mr. putin will be responsible for the sacrifice and destruction as the result of any military action. bill: they talked about genocide at the u.n. and mass graves. is there any proof of that or can you outright deny that. >> you have seen these outrageous claims. it's absolutely right out of the

russian play books. he may be moving xs and os at stake, tens of thousands of lives are at stake here. if you look at some of the things we have seen, you can go back to 2014 and say he's claiming he's the victim. he's claiming ukraine, surrounded by 150,000 russian truths will somehow attack russia. these are not credible. >> insiders say, and they believe that you continue thinks he can buy anyone. and that would include the country of germany and the pipeline or natural gas. it must make american wonder, do we care more about this than most europeans do.

>> when we were in brussels and the secretary had a chance to meet with the defense ministers of all our allies, he said publicly nato is more united and resolute than he has seen in his military career. bill: would you concede it took germany a while to come around to that? >> every country has to look at this through their own prism. we have been sharing information with our allies in realtime. every country has to decide for themselves how they are going to respond and react. i was a nato officer for a long time. i too have never seen the alliance more unified and resolved. what putin says he doesn't want is what he's getting, a strong

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bill: this week the that passed a resolution of support for ukraine. that's a rare bipartisan move. but far from the mother of all sanctions the senators promised a few weeks back. joining us from houston, ted

cruz. i want to get to a number of topics. let's start on ukraine. you heard my conversation with admiral kirby. have we done all we can? >> not remotely. tragically europe is on the verge of war because of the weakness and fecklessness of joe biden. i heard a minute ago, i heard kirby make reference to the biden administration saying quote we are still digesting what happened in august. joe biden's disastrous retreat from afghanistan. the consequences at the time i said as a result of this incredible weakness, all of our enemies across the globe are looking to washington, taking the measure of the man in the oval office, and the chances of russia i raiding ukraine have

risen 10 fold, the chances of china invading taiwan increased 10 fold. we are seeing the first of those two shoes dropping today because of biden's weakness. we had in place bipartisan policies to prevent what's happening now. in 2019 i i produced targeted sanctions against the nord stream pipeline. it the skips ukraine because the real insurance that ukraine had against invasion is putin has to take his natural gas in pipe lines that go through ukraine. once heed builds nord real 2 he doesn't have to worry about those pipe lines. president trump signed my

sanctions legislation into law. and putin stopped building the pipeline the day president trump signed those sanctions. and putin began building that pipeline again on january 24, 2021. four days after joe biden was signed into office. joe biden formally waived sanctions on russia, on putin, and gave the green light to build nord real 2. that's -- nord stream 2. that's why we have russian troops on the border of ukraine ready to invade. bill: it's true the president could go ahead with sanctions on his own. the white house has been aggressive in calling out russian tactics. by the day, i would argue.

would you concede that worked so far? >> it hasn't worked at all. the ukrainians said if you want to stop a russian invasion, they asked the united states specifically put sanctions on nord stream 2 today. joe biden could do that today. he refuses to do it. they said provide lethal military aid. give us the weapons to defend ourselves. i forced a vote in the senate. every senator voted on my legislation twice previously. but last time you had a president with an r behind his name and now we have a president with a d behind his name. i wanted a big bipartisan majority 55-54. they were calling the filibuster

a jim crow racist relic from the past. that same day they were filibustering to protect russia and putin and 44 democrats gave into political power. the president of ukraine, the prime minister of ukraine said if you want to stop this invasion, sanction nord stream 2. joe biden came to capitol hill and personally lobbied senators to vote against russian sanctions. joe biden becoming president is the best thing that ever happened tragically for vladimir putin. bill: if there is an invasion, maybe the sanctions talk comes back to congress. on the durham probe, this past

week the findings suggest some sort of internet traffic was exploited to establish an inference that tied donald trump to putin. andrew mccarthy wrote, did durham find something worse than watergate? not so far. is this like the mueller probe all over again, all smoke and no fire? >> we have to see what the facts are. but the allegations that durham filed is deeply concerning. he and he the special prosecutor, a lawyer for the hillary clinton campaign conspired with a big tech executive to monitor and spy on donald trump. to spy on him at his home. to spy on him at his office. and they were spying on the white house itself. they were spying on a sitting president.

you and i both remember when president trump said the democrats are spying on me, and the corporate media mocked him and said what a ridiculous claim for him to make. what special counsel durham is alleging is true, what donald trump said was absolutely right. to the extent hillary clinton is complicit with this, her campaign is complicit with it. big tech is complicit. if that temperatures true, it's bigger than watergate. people went to jail for watergate and they need to go to jail on this if it's true. bill: the white house said it will make a nomination for the supreme court by the end of the month. the president said he's committed to putting forward an african-american woman. you firmly disagreed with this

idea. one point you called it offensive and insulting. does that make you an automatic no on the nominee? >> democrats today believe in racial discrimination. they are committed to it as a political proposition. i think it's wrong to stand up and say this administration is going to discriminate. the president said only african-american women are eligible for this slot. 94 percent of americans are not eligible. merrick garland was told you are the wrong skin color and gender, you are not eligible to be considered. we ought to move past discriminating based on race. if he happened to nominate a justice who was an african-american woman, great. but if fox news put a posting,

we are looking for a new host for "fox news sunday" and we'll only hire an african-american woman or hispanic man or native american woman. racial discrimination is wrong. when we have a nominee i will consider that nominee on the record. i am confident the senate judiciary committee, we'll have a vigorous process examing that nominee's record. we are not going to gone it gutter like the democrats did with brett kavanaugh. we'll focus on the nominee's record, and what kind of justice she would make. bill: i hear a window of consideration. we'll see where that goes. and tell your dog we are almost done here. you are in texas. and the texas primary hits in 10 days. it's the first major vote ahead

of the mid terms. you endorsed many candidates in many states. you have not endorsed a candidate for attorney general in texas. one of those candidates, a republican, is under investigation. will you weigh in before that vote the first of march? >> they have been strong supporters of mine, and that's a race i'm staying out of. i'll trust the voters of texas to make a determination. there are many people running for that race who are strong conservatives and people i respect. bill: no endorsement today. >> that's right. i'm staying out of that race. bill: in texas, ted cruz. back to your dog. thank you, sir, for coming on. in a moment we'll bring in our sunday group on the last-minute talks to stop a potential war, an invasion of ukraine.

>> when a bomb crater appears in a schoolyard, children have a question. what attempts at appeasement lead to. bill: time now for our sunday group. republican strategist, karl rove. jennifer griffin and former democratic congressman, harold ford, jr. we just sawfly to munich and back. he emphasizes they are not in the state of panic. that was clear from his trip. >> based on the reporting i have been doing the last few days, the russian military on the

border with ukraine is basically unkoilg. that means more than half of those forces are moving into attack positions. that's a significant term in terms of military doctrine. they are gassing up those tanks. they left the barracks, they are living in the fields, and they are just a few miles from the ukraine border. they have not been given the order to cross the line of departure. but what is reported is the intelligence that led biden to say he believes have decide on an invasion. that that was coming from mid-level commanders. we are seeing the battle space being prepared for what i'm being told would be a significant invasion. he has the architecture in place for a massive invasion that

would include taking kyiv and there is a national security council meeting this aftermoon. but i'm hearing there is a great deal of fear in the coming days this will move forward. bill: carl, i want you to listen to president biden from friday. >> as of this moment i'm convinced he made the decision. we have reason to believe that. bill: how do you think the biden administration is playing its hand. >> as of recently they have been playing it well. the threat of putin taking ukraine unifies our allies in europe. but putin is not just look at what this administration has done recently. joe biden was part of an administration seen by pub as weak after they moved to take

the crimea region of ukraine. one of the first actions of joe biden was to kill the keystone pipeline. in may after biden waived the sanctions on nord stream 2 for reasons that are inexplicable. biden issued a 0-page paper on the historic unity of ukraine and russia. and suggesting the baltics and parts of the poland were historically part of russia and should be reunited. it was a 16% increase in non-defense spending. and being heralded as a weapon against climate. all of this i think emboldened putin. the run-up to this has been very

dangerous. bill: harold, we saw the market dive this past week. what are the wider implications of an invasion? >> market implications, military implications are all on the table. we have to put there is in perspective. i heard someone talking about sorting out old security grievances. putin never accepted the fact that old ussr lost the cold war. and he continually tries to revise the outcome. you rightly noted with mr. cushy that our may -- with mr. kirby with our old partners the unity is better than it has been in 20

years. diplomacy remains on the table, and we have all these punishing sanctions in place if he invades. has it been perfect? no. no lead-up to war is perfect. jennifer's reporting is so critical. if we intercepted this kind of communique with the mid and upper-level commanders, and an invasion is imminent, i think it's clear that putin's real concern here is he's losing ground. his relevance. he has to try to assert and inject himself. and what better way than to do this. china is the audience that our national security apparatus is probably looking at even more so than they are looking at putin right now. bill: listen to there is sound

bite from our interview. >> the leaders we met with in brussels and lithuania and poland see the situation the same way we do. bill: it might have taken a while to get there. behind the scenes, jen he talked about offramps for putin. what do you here about a possibility that would give an offramp. >> i don't think it did take a long time to get the nato allies united. what is different from last august, they say that what the biden administration did this time that they didn't do last august is they built a very strong alliance and they have been informing those nato leaders. germ any has actually been -- germany has actually been on board. the offramps are limited.

whether the secretary of state should go ahead with a meeting of sergey lavrov if putin invades in the coming days which is expected. so that will be a key point. but what officials told us is russia always loves to talk while they are invading. one issue with what karl said. the appeasement of vladimir putin goes back before the biden administration. in munich he stated what he planned to do with regard to rebuilding the soviet union. shortly after putin invaded georgia. that began. putin has been doing this. then under president trump i remember traveling to nato

headquarters with secretary mattis and there was a feeling president trump was going to pull out of nato. that did incredible damage to nato unity. what we are seeing now is a much more unified nato because they see how dangerous putin is. >> with all due respect the u.s. sent naval assets to the black sea. they returned the combat troops from iraq and supported the georgian forces. the united states stood strongly behind georgia and as a result, the russians stopped. and there was aid and assistance. bill: when we come back we'll take to you texas and look at an issue facing the first primary.

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bill: we are on the road to the mid terms, and "fox news sunday" will bring you on-the-ground reporting. it goes down in 10 days. rich edson looks at the shifting political dominance along the southern effects as border. reporter: raffle gonzalez has -- ralph gonzalez has ridden horses since before he can remember. he inherited his love of horses from his far it and passed it on. >> it's not even a sport.

it's part of life. >> he balances raising a teenaged son with the demanding days working the out fields of south texas. >> being a single dad is hard. there was a democratic conversation at every table. it's not like that anymore. reporter: for generations south texas has been a large blue patch on a mostly presented electoral map. republicans gained found across the region. evidence they say they can flip two house seats. the regional typically elected more moderate democrats like henry cuellar.

congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez are backing a more liberal democrat here. progressives coming from out of state to campaign against a fellow democrat is ridiculous. jessica came within 4 points of unseating cuellar. this year she is back at it challenging him from the left. across south texas, president biden performed significantly worse than his democratic predecessors. and some voted republican for the first time in a century. >> i watch them run through my kids' games at practices. we are the party faith, family

and freedom. we are pro law enforcement, we are pro-life. >> kathy garcia is is running in the primary for a chance to challenge cuellar. >> in the last primary we did endorse congressman cuellar. but there are a number of topics. the fbi recently raided the congressman's home and he insists they will finds no evidence of wrongdoing. one district nearly went republican in 2020. >> i think the blue dog democrats will still be in control of this area. we'll honor the traditions and values of this area. there is a desire to nominate more mod ral at democrats.

>> we are raids in the catholic church and those values will continue to show itself and we'll remain a conservative democratic district. >> it's not about democrat or republican. it's about who speaks to you about solving problems you are dealing with. >> this is cotulla, texas 9 miles west of south san antonio. many of the major political issues run through this town. a lot of it is economy. it has to do with oil and gas. it's an industry that has grown significantly over the past several years. but it's also ranching. and ranchers say border issues are a major concern. >> they say the border surge is causing migrants to cross their

land more frequently than ever. sometimes in stolen vehicles that destroy their property. >> they run through the fence and our cows get out. >> they are spending more time fixing fences and hope national leaders will address this surge. >> take a stand and care for the ranchers and farmers. reporter: gonzales says he's taking his own stand. he's running for justice of the peace. >> i had to run with the democratic party. it doesn't necessarily mean that all my views are democratic. bill: rich edson reporting from southern texas. now we are back with the connell. karl, you know this area quite well. what is happening in texas and is there evidence of a trend elsewhere. >> you need to look at the

difference between the presidential vote in 2016 and 2020 to see the shift in this part of the texas. the further west you get from the gulf of mexico, the bigger the shift, because you are getting deeper into energy country. you have a truck driver making $110,000 a year and his wife is doing well with the cafe because there are a lot of oil people coming in and having lunch and leaving a nice tip. you have the democrats saying the green new deal is terrific. let's end our reliance on hydro car bronze. you take the respect for law enforcement that includes the border patrol. there are a lot of people in south texas with family in the border patrol. and you have a concern with

farmers and ranchers. we are likely to see heated races where the candidates are latinas. bill: how concerned should the democrats be when you see tories like this. >> we should be concerned. the issues of covid and crime and the border. many voters you had in the package with rich, not get out in front of them, but walk alongside of them. i'm a blue dog democrat. when you can have an honest and open debate. but it should be responding to people's needs. this is happening in wyoming in the liz cheney race.

the body politic is strengthened when you have a robust debate and you respond to people. anybody who is able to address covid, crime and the border will be the party that wins the white house in 2024. bill: something happened this week that is extremely rare. a recall vote was held in san francisco after 3 members were kicked off by an overwhelming margin. over 70% of the people who live from san francisco voted against them. 85% of the voters wants the democrats in 2020. schools are closed for a year. parents are saying enough is enough. as a mother yourself, how do you see the importance next nor of this issue. >> you can't underestimate the

issue of schools and how it is awakening the voting base. you see the loudoun county school board meeting. in san francisco, this was organized to remove three members of the board who had tried to pull in a certain direction that it was democrats who removed them. what was significant is that it awakened the asian vote in san francisco because they took away her meritocracy. they turned that into a lottery, and that's where many of those asian kids went to school. bill: the board voted to rename schools and take off names like washington and lincoln. in the end it didn't happen. it was the board spending hours on the exercise while schools sat empty and students suffered.

they might be right. but it's probably both. >> i think it's both. it's a combination of things. we saw this in northern virginia where there was attempt to take a magnet school that chose students on the basis of qualifications and turned it into a lottery because there were too many asian kids getting into the schools. democrats are going to have a real problem. this won't be just a national issue. there will be people work at the state and local level running for the legislature. we'll see things like no mask mandates, curriculum transparency, and schools of excellence answer meritocracy. bill: the "wall street journal" wrote, if it can happen in san francisco of all places, the

democrats should be worried. the woke may wake up to a far bigger shock in november. republicans swept the state less than 3 months ago in virginia. are voters already ahead of the politicians? >> the voters are always ahead of the politicians, that's why results change year after year. extremism can be rejected in san francisco by democrats. i hope it happens more when anybody goes off the deep end. local will is the high school where the meritocracy is being replaced. parents are standing up and politicians would be well advised to listen to them. bill: nice to see all three of you. and we'll see you again. in a moment, a final word on the week ahead.

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bill: that's it for this sunday. i'm bill hemmer. stay with your fox news channel

for the latest on the tensions in the ukraine. you can join dana and me in the mornings on the fox news channel. biden was agreed to meet with vladimir putin if russia does not this would be news has been broken by fox we will get into that. good evening everyone. this is "the next revolution" this is the home of positive populism, pro-worker, pro-family, pro-community, and especially pro-america. steve: would you believe it getting right to the heart of this issue this morning when the secretary of state a