>> a deadly and dangerous storm. >> this could be the deadliest hurricane in florida's history. >> hurricane ian batters florida and mas landfall. president biden declares a major disaster for florida and other states. >> we have people's lives at stake we do not have time for pettiness. we have to work together. >> how long can partisanship be put aside? overseas, putin puts ukrainian territory under russian control illegally. he says he would defense the brazen land grab. ginni thomas, the wife of a

supreme court justice, meets with a generous six committee. >> the main thing to do is to claim victory. we won, you are wrong. >> new stunning video of roger stone calling for violence days before the election. ♪ >> this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has provided wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we can find a plan that fits you. >> additional funding is provided by the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting. and contributions from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again from washington, here is our moderator. yamiche: good evening and welcome. this evening, millions of americans remain impacted by one of the worst disasters in florida's history. hurricane ianad 150 mile-per-hour wind and flooding. it continues its devastating path. a state of emergency has been declared in georgia, virginia, and the carolinas. leaders are putting party politics aside, at least for now. ron desantis and president biden are keeping in touch. >> he said all hands on deck. he wants to be helpful. he said asked whatever you need.

>> this is about saving lives, homes, and businesses. i have talked to him. it is not a matter of my disagreement with him on other items. yamiche: with the midterm elections less than six weeks away, political television ads continue to air in florida. >> they allowed radical abortions, even at the moment of birth. >> you have one of the worst attendance records in the senate. >> he has been very strong on safety and law and order. >> maybe it is time you had a governor focused on you. ron desantis is dividing florida. yamiche: joining me in studio are my guests. a white house reporter for the washington post. the white house and national security correspondent for the new york times. the justice reporter for nbc news. and the white house correspondent. some breaking news, you will be

the president of the white house correspondents association. congratulations so much. we will start with you. it is only fair. hurricane ian has forest presidt biden and ron desantis, two people who have criticized each other, to work together. what is your reporting revealed about their efforts to try to respond to this and the political calculations here? >> one thing really important to president biden is to be seen as a president for all people. we have heard that since he has been running for the presidency. to be able to put aside their big differences that they have. the knife throwing that has been happening for nths and months. putting that aside is what everybody talks about. i will say, that will go away at some point. president biden at some point

will probably go to lorded. he will have to talk to and be seen with the governor. a lot of people looked at that as launching a reelection campaign. they do need to be seen as doing that. from the american people, it is good to see that politicians can put aside the nastiness at some point. yamiche: what about the political risk for ron desantis? if he is seen as too friendly with president biden? >> this is what happened with chris christie. you have to walk this line. but still be clear that you do not like them. it is not a governor. but it is something he has done. he said this is a time for

lives. that will probably continue. that is the best way to handle these situations. yamiche: talking about odd places to be, we have to point out that as a freshman congressman in 2013, ron desantis opposed a victims of hurricane sandy raid he has now had to reverse that idea. what do you make of this change in stance? >> all politics are local. it sounds like there was a time for pettiness. it was 2013. hurricane sandy came up right through new york. through the new england states. it was pretty devastating all the way arnd. we did not hear the same kind of we all need to work together. i think in some ways if he does

show up down in florida, and i'm sure he will, and the two of them are together. it will be pretty there that one of then is doing this despite the differences. yamiche: we played the political ads. it shows in some ways that the midterms are still off of mind for people even as they are responding to the hurricane. what is the white house strategy on midterms? and what do you make of these political ads? >> we are five or six weeks out from the midterms. that is probably why the ads are still running in florida. florida has a number of tight races. the governor might be using this to launch a presidential bid. in terms of the white house, we have seen the president become

much more aggressive in his messaging over the last couple of weeks you have seen him say the time has passed. he tries to make a distinguished -- distinction between different republicans. he has become much more aggressive in his messaging. he has used political events to message this. has become much more aggressive. a number of democrats across the country have adopted his messaging. yamiche: law & order, crime, that was part of the political ads. tell us a little bit about the politics of this. >> you see a lot of these

republican attacks on the fbi that do not line up with what republicans are trying to run on. they have a number of conservatives within the fbi who are running to republican congress people and telling these stories and saying they are thinking people are being too tough on january 6. a lot of these cases are open and shut. not very difficult to prove. a lot of people filmed themselves committing crimes. pretty easy cases to make. the idea that you should not charge these individuals is outside the main. people within the fbi have been saying this. there is this ongoing beat against the fbi. if you look at the filters of who goes in there and law enforcement overall, it is a conservative leaning organization.

yamiche: it is interesting that he talk about the prosecutions. your twitter feed reminds me every day just how important january 6 is and what these blatant crimes word that people committed. we will talk more about january 6 and all of that but i also have to talk abouthat is going on stateside. and what is going on abroad. vladimir putin has now annexed for ukrainian territories into russia by holding a sham referendum. he says he will defend the territories with a veiled threat of nuclear force. i am so happy you are at this table. there is so much to talk about when it comes to russia.

i am a little worried. how concerned is the biden administration and your sources about these actions? >> they are concerned. they were more concerned at the beginning of the war. we went into this again. in -- putin has all kind of normal military options ahead of him to take over ukraine. but now he is having a hard time holding onto territory. that is why people are worried more now than they were before. if you cannot rely on his convenonal military force and he has been humiliated, he will have to think more about his other options. obviously unconventional weapons, sabotage. we are trying to figure out who it was who was responsible for sabotaging the nord stream 1

into pipelines this week. there are some good theories out about how it would play into russia's interest. there are chemical and biological weapons. what putin keeps coming back to is saying we have nuclear weapons and do not forget about it. today he said here she met and nagasaki --iroshima and nagasaki, those were american decisions. yamiche: ukraine is saying please let us into nato. they have said that for a while. what is the ability or potential for ukraine to be led into nato? finland and sweden, their applications are moving through. >> fast.

i saw the president of finland when he was here earlier this week. he thinks they could well be and by the end of the year. finland and sweden were easy cases. they are established democracies. ukraine has always been a hard case. in part because there is still a lot of corruption. once they are in, all the other native members know that they are they committed to direct conflict with russia. nobody is excepting that these four provinces are now russian territory. only the russians are saying that. if the rule here is let's stay out of direct conflict between the u.s. and russia, once they are in nato, you are in direct conflict.

no one is ready to take that step. yamiche: you have been reporting on new sanctions out because of what russia has done. what is your sense of why they think the sanctions will be different given the fact that we have seen them put sanctions on russia in the past? >> this targeted a number of individuals close to putin. they think they can be effective. i don't know that it will make a huge difference in the overall picture of the war. but i think they are trying to send a signal to russia. the national security advisor set the point of the sanctns is to keep reducing russia's ability to carry out conflicts. make it very hard for them. they also targeted companies that have helped with military supplies.

anyone who aids or supports russia was going to face severe consequences. i think this is more symbolic. this was a move with little modern precedent. he saw them targeting members of the russian military who have been accused of human rights violations. i think they're just trying to reduce the capability to carry out the war. >> we are kind of sanction out by this point. the most effective ones are the export controls. they are making hard for the russian military to build new equipment. the fact of the matter is that most of the sanctions are coming from the western democracies. china and india and many other nations in southeast asia are hanging out on the sidelines.

if you're really going to isolate pressure, it has to be with them. yamiche: the other thing going on here is there are political storms brewing in this country. generally six committee postponed their hearing. ginni thomas testified before the committee behind closed doors for more than four hours. she was asked about her multiple conversations with white house aides and state republica election officials in support of overturning the election results. the committee has also been given new video of roger stone heard advocating for violence and sharing his plan to overturn the election results. >> sorry, we are not accepting these results.

if the electors show up, armed guards will throw them out. yamiche: clearly you are at the table for this entire section. i want to start with ginni thomas. she told the committee we know very few details. but she made clear that she still believes the election is stolen. what is the significance that she is still saying that? >> this is one of those cases where the doj and the congressional investigation department, there is not enough evidence for them to really run a criminal investigation against ginni thomas. if they were going to go tt route, if they were going to potentially pursue something, you will want to double check your math. this is because of her position

is why she has come into focus. she has the ear of a supreme or justice. they claimed there is a wall in the relationship. that will be for folks to decide. this doesn't really get into the realm of criminality necessarily. it is certainly damaging politically and does not look great. but it does not rise quite to the level of criminality. yamiche: it does not look great is one way to put it. roger stone said maybe we just get violent rated. >> the thing that is interesting

about ginni thomas's she goes against all of the stereotypes of who would believe that the election was stolen. this is someone we would say is well educated. who has the most connections you could possibly have. bringing her in is a reminder to everyone that the thought that someone can believe these lies and conspiracy theories goes beyond socioeconomic status and education. it is something deeper. this is not leaving the republican party anytime soon. these types of folks who have all of this power and influence. >> so many people in washington, republicans don't actually believe this stuff. but ginni thomas actually believes this stuff.

as opposed to a lot of republicans were just saying it. yamiche: you also had a scoop this week on the oath keepers trial. tell us about it and how all of this is somewhat connected. >> there is a woman who is the general counsel for the oath keepers. she was on the grounds of the capitol that day. she was involved with lawyers for triumph. i have been talking to her for a while. i called up andrew giuliani and it turned out that they were in communication after the election.

she puts those two things together. we will find out a lot more in the upcoming trial about this connection. yamiche: the president is trying to navigate all of this. he wants the doj to remain independent. but everyone is talki about it. what are you hearing? >> i think he is very careful to get nowhere near the doj part of it. you have seen him use the january 6 hearings in his messaging. you saw him really ramp up his rhetoric about the threat to democracy. pointing to some of the evidence in the generate six hearings. i don't think he can ignore it.

he thinks it will be irresponsible. he really believes this is become the mainstream of the republican party. donald trump is still the leader of the party. this mentality is part of the republican mentality. yamiche: what do we know about the next hearing? she said they would not be any witnesses. what do we know? >> they said it will be overarching. it will be as specific as some of the other hearings we have seen. they are very good at keeping secrets. they are running out of time for this last hearing. republicans are not going to

investigate january 6 in the same way. so they have to put a bow on this. that is something they say they will do. >> the closer they get to the midterm elections, what was most effective is when they had witnesses with republicans in the room. that was pretty effective. yamiche: last question to you, there is obviously all of this back-and-forth. >> the night the doj has asked the appeals court to expedite their appeal of this. donald trump asked for the special master. she gave it to him.

she tried to hold donald trump's feet to the fire. she was making all of the statements. is this list accurate? the judge shut down the special master. that included a couple of judges. they said they will speed this up. doj really wants to put the pedal to the metal. yamiche: a quick question, is this special master backfiring? >> absolutely. yamiche: ok. it was so nice to have you all around the table.

thank you for coming here and sharing your reporting. don't forget to watch on saturday. you will get the latest on hurricane ian and the recovery from the storm. my heart is with all of this impacted find a storm in my native state of florida. thank you for joining us. good night from washington. >> corporate funding is provided by consumer cellular. additional funding is provided by the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions from viewers like you. thank you.

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