>> foreign threats and the mastic divisions. >> an invasion could begin at any time. >> the likelihood of a russian invasion of ukraine increases. >> any american in ukraine should leave as soon as possible. >> more american troops are set to go to the area. >> they are property of the american people. >> new reporting about former president trump's handlinof top-secret paperwork. >> the word insurrection is politically charged propaganda. >> republicans at odds over how to describe the january 6 attack. >> the science is saying that masks work. >> democrats debate mask mandates.

>> this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by consumer cellular. additional funding provided by the estate of arnold adams, the ewan foundation, robert and susan rosenbaum, the corporation for public broadcasting, and from contributions from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again, from washington, our moderator. yamiche: good evening and welcome to "washington week." u.s. officials are no warning that the standoff between russia and ukraine is an urgent

situation. president putin could invade at any time. russia has been conducting large-scale military exercises on the radiant order -- ukrainian border. this comes as the pentagon has ordered 3000 more troops to deploy to poland. this week, the president spoke about the role of troops in the region. >> what scenarios would you put in troops to rescue? >> that is a world war. when we start shooting at each other, that is a very different world. yamiche: joining me tonight to discuss all of this and more is the moderator of "face the nation" and the chief foreign correspondent for nbc news. a deputy editor for the washington post. and the national security

reporter for the wall street journal. thank you all for being here. obviously the region is bracing for a possible invasion. what change in the last few hours or days change the urgency of the situation? what do we know about the thinking on whether there will be an invasion? >> this is an incredibly dangerous moment. this is the largest military buildup have seen in about what he years in this part of the world. we know something has changed in the past 24 hours in terms of the level of concern of u.s. officials. 80% of the military forces that vladimir putin would need to use in order to carry out an invasion are now in place. the rest could swiftly follow. my reporting has borne out that

the u.s. has not assessed that not a mere putin has made a final decision to go ahead with an invasion. but there is an increased sense that this window of opportunity to persuade him is clothing -- closing quickly. we are coming up at a key time where conditions could be right for a military invasion to take place. the diplomacy has not delivered anything that would show putin is using these forces to actually win something at the negotiating table. he is taking maximalist positions and he is not moving from them. tomorrow the president speaks to the russian president. he will have an opportunity to perhaps persuade him to take an offramp. yamiche: you say the window is closing.

white house officials have said that russia requested this phone call that will be happening on saturday. what more do we know about whether or not putin can be persuaded? is there anything biting can say -- biden can say? is there a solution i can still happen? >> that is what there are certainly a bunch of hopes among western diplomats and officials. i hear different things depending on which european official i am talking to. there are some points of difference in terms of the perception of putin's intent. it is hard to argue with the facts on the ground that he has created in terms of the military buildup. that is where these warnings that you are seeing, whether it is candidate, the u.k., the

israelis, are thinning out their presence in that city. it is that concern that the capital city could be taken with relatively short notice in a very effective way that has caused concern among many western countries. they are saying we need to hedge our bets and move our people out of the line of fire. for president biden, i do not know what the strategy will be. threats may not be the best move forward. but certainly that has been the publicosturing by the biden administration. there will be deterrence and punishment. in the form of economic sanctions and further buildup of u.s. forces in the nato countries surrounding ukraine. yamiche: thank you again for

being here. you are very generous with our time. you are kind of our ukrainian correspondent at this time. i want to ask you a little bit about the issues on the ground. we were talking about the facts on the ground area now they tell the story. we have seen ukrainian officials tried to downplay the threat that was happening. today we saw ukrainian military forces say this is going to be an urgent situation. they are worried about the military buildup. what has changed on the ground and where we hearing this different tone? >> they do recognize that the decision would be very dire for them. russia is building up especially on the northern border. where they have this major issue .

it threatens countries like poland and the baltic countries and a number of others. th is something they are acknowledging. they know how to deal with the threat. they understand what their country is facing. a reason they have been trying to tone down the rhetoric did not instigate. it will be a major blow domestically to the economy. they believe that is something that will trigger a house of cards situation. if the economy gets hit, a lot of other issues could happen for the government to crumble or be very vulnerable. that is really what they are trying to project. they do recognize that their country has been under threat for a year. they do recognize that some of

them, the situation is growing increasingly serious. it is submitted -- a bit of a game. they believe putin has been bluffing up until very recently. they don't want to show that they are intimidated or fearful of him. ukrainian military is more powerf and equipped and skilled than it was in 2014. the image they want to put out there is if you are really going to take this, we are ready for you. that is what they have been trying to project this whole time. yamiche: you were talking about how dangerous the situation is. the fact that it is incredibly serious. can you talk about the pitics of this? president biden campaign on

ending wars. now we are say more troops go to eastern europe to bolster nato allies. the national security visor insists they are not there to fight. what is the president thinking as all this is happening? >> the politics here are very dicey. this is a war worry country -- weary country. biden campaigned on ending u.s. entanglements overseas. he withdrew u.s. forces last year from afghanistan. that was a chaotic and messy withdraw. there are couple things on the line here for biden. there is the question of whether

u.s. forces go into ukraine and actually engage in a war with russian forces. there is also the question of can he competently execute a strategy as commander-in-chief? the withdraw in afghanistan was messy. civilian lives were at stake. it was very difficult to get all of the americans out in time before the taliban took over. a lot of people will be watching if this administration can execute their strategy as it relates to ukraine. without putting american military lives in danger. you have seen the national security advisor urging americans to leave ukraine. people will be watching in the

next couple of days. >> there are a couple of things here. you hear that being emphasized all the time. that is not just about saying we are not going through the unprecedented evacuation. we are also not going to be boxed in or allow the president to be boxed in. ready to be forced to confront russia head-on if america is somehow caught in the crossfire. president biden framed his

entire presidency as returning america to the world stage. redefining the world who america is. it is everything in terms of how the world has functioned since world war ii. the idea that might does not make right. you cannot just go in and invade a country because you like the territory. there will be punishment under international law. there will be consequences. on the other side of this decision you have biden looking at does he want to defend that system? and how much? he said he is not willing to send in u.s. troops to defend that world order. but he has to do something. he has to flex that muscle. on the other side of this is a much riskier world. what is the message being sent

to china or other aggressors? when you have nuclear powers potentially facing all fear, that puts a real different cast on the decision other than just a conversation about ukraine. the stakes here really are high for the president in terms of his entire message. as the foreign policy president who spent decades doing this. he ran the ukraine portfolio back in 2014. that looms large. obama got -- putin got the better of obama back then. now president biden wants to show that he learned that lesson. that he will make up -- not get caught again. yamiche: all sorts of good context when you think about the stakes of all of those. there are so many people

watching those who are may be connected to people who might be deploying or who have loved ones in the military. talk a little bit about what goes into a decision to the lawyer our troops -- deploy our troops. talk about the consequences that could come from this dangerous situation. >> for military families, any situation like this promotes a lot of anxiety. a lot of emotion. especially after what we saw in afghanistan last year. a lot of those emotions are on overdrive. the president has been very firm that he has no desire to get involved militarily. that is this risk that the capital could be attacked. a lot of european officials are saying something very different. they say that would change the entire dynamic. they may have to get involved.

the u.s. is staying firm saying they do not want to do it. this is a european issue at the end of the day. u.s. troops are still there as a support mechanism. they are there to reinforce our allies. that is the mission they are primarily therefore. yamiche: an important mission. thank you so much for sharing your reporting. for being so generous with your time. meanwhile this week on the domestic front, the national archives asked the department of justice to investigate former president trump's handling of white house documents, including information marked by ossifd. -- classified. washington has seen both parties divided. the republican national committee censured

representatives for taking part in the january 6 investigation they called the violent attack legitimate political discourse. that language immediately led to backlash from democrats and a few republicans. mitch mcconnell pushed back as well. >> it was a violent insurrection with the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election. from one administration to the next. yamiche: in the meantime, a number of democratic governors announced they would rollback mask requirements. in his interview with nbc news, the president stood by the mandates. he would not directly criticized democratic governors. >> the science says it.

it is a tough call. yamiche: joining the conversation now is the editor at large for a nonprofit news site. thank you for being here. you have written a couple of books on former president trump and covered him extensively. talk about the significance of what we learned about how the former president handled documents. there are call logs missing critical information. could be consequences? >> there could be. we will have to see whether the justice department decides to move forward. some of these documents were obtained by mar-a-lago. some of them were classified. some were top-secret. thanks to the reporting from my colleagues, we have learned a lot about the carelessness with

which trump and those who worked for him at the white house approached the archival process. how they dealt with documentation and presidential records who are part of public record that are supposed to be sent to the national archives. there were papers that trump had torn up. people had to take them back together. there was even a report from the new york times that some documents have been flushed down the toilet by the former president. there was a real discard for the federal law peppered buyers that these public records -- presidential records be treated as public records and handed over to the national archives. we will have to wait and see what the department of justice decides to do. there is a real irony here because we all remember it was only eight years ago when trump began running for president, he

seized upon hillary clinton and her use of a private email server. in the classified documents that were sent on david emails. they made that a major issue in the 2016 campaign. fast forward and we see former president trump with the same careless regard. yamiche: what does it reveal about where the state of american democracy is that you have a major political already, the republican national committee, saying january 6 was legitimate political discourse? there were only a few republicans willing to speak out against it. a new researchable shows that fewer americans are blaming former president from for what -- trump for what happened on dinner six -- january six. >> that resolution was unanimously approved at the rnc

gathering that describes january 6 as legitimate political discourse. that could not be farther from this earth -- the truth. the more we learn in the press about the insurrection,he stronger the case for public hearings. democrats know they are in a race against the clock on this issue. midterms are looming. they are competing for voters attention spans. they are saying these hearings could come as true -- quickly a spring. if the democrats lose control of congress, you know what will happen. they will dismantle that commission. yamiche: i also want to ask you briefly about the supreme court on monday reinstating an alabama congressional map.

the lower court said it diluted thpower of african-american voters. what does this say about the state of the voting rights act? and the power of black voters in this country? how that access to the ballot box might be limited in the midterms and the 2020 presidential election -- 2024 presidential election. >> this is why you have local officials pressing for a federal response to the ongoing threat of voter suppression. it is functioning under the guise of a false threat to election integrity. the black voters who showed up in record numbers even in the midst of a pandemic, we know this legislation is targeted directly in response to that record tnout. statehouses across the country

are continuing to pass this legislation seeking redress in the form of federal regulation. justice department action which is not really available as an avenue. with merrick garland there now, you have lawmakers and voters who wanted voter protection looking to take action. yamiche: i want to ask you about the cdc and the mask mandates. why are we seeing democratic governors, some vulnerable governors who are running for reelection, are changing their tune in getting behind lifting these mask requirements? >> it is fascinating. i think all of us, we know our own exhaustion levels personally. i know it is something at cbs we have seen. we have heard this sense of depression and frustration and

anger. whether it is state, local, or federal governnt did we are in the third year of this pandemic. as we know, let's be honest, public policy is always a balance of politics with science. it is never clearly one or the other. it has not been in this pandemic to date. when it comes to masking, i think it is interesting, you had the state of pennsylvania lift asked mandates. in new jersey, it will be effective march 7. there is a planning ahead going into the spring that is different than the way a republican governor in virginia instituted his reversal, basically saying no more mask mandates in a way that locked him into court battles with school districts. in new jersey, the governor is just saying he will lift it and school districts can decide. it is pushing that political

problem onto the shoulders of schools. not having it just be aimed at the governor's office. yamiche: it is something we will definitely keep watching. inflation is higher than ever. all of these different things that we still need to be covering. thank you so much for joining us and sharing your reporting. we will continue on our extra. a fatal shooting in minnesota and no knock warrants. you can find it online tune in monday for the latest on the ukrainian crisis. thank you again for joining us. good night from washington. ♪

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(dramatic music) (narrator) the american civil war was over. enslaved people were now free people. ♪ though the chains of physical bondage were gone, new ways were found to restore the prewar social order to keep black people down and subjugated. ♪ racist jim crow bylaws, for example, were enacted in the south long before south africa institutionalized them as apartheid. they ensured that whatever the situation, black folks got the rough end of the stick. the worst housing, the worst schools, the worst jobs, and the worst protection in the face of the law. ♪ right across america, despite what the founding fathers had written in the constitution, it was apparent that not all men were created equal. for black america, the struggle continued. ♪