more sophisticated, but it will require the same kind of determination, the same resolve that we can't let anyone take from us the rights that was paid so dearly for us to have in the first place. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. hardball starts right now. without a trace. let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews in san francisco. let me start tonight with this -- is it possible for a jetliner, a 777, to take off from an international airport and never be seen or heard from again? can a major airline head off into the skies and disappear from the face of the earth? as of tonight, friday, march 21, 2014, the answer is a profound

and indeed stunning yes. we don't know what happened to malaysian airline flight 370 with its 239 passengers and crew. we don't know if someone deliberately took this plane to its fate or whether a mechanical failure led to the horror or whether there was some combination of foul play and unforeseen horror. we don't know. today over the turbulent ocean southwest of australia planes looked and looked and found nothing. whether those objects seen by satellite last sunday were part of the airplane no one knows. there's been no way to tell. tonight go back to where reality and man's limited knowledge insists we go -- back to square one. and the big question of whodunit or what done it or just the big fat question mark itself. robert hager is a nbc news contributor and former nbc news aviation correspondent and captain john cox an msnbc aviation analyst and was a commercial pilot for 25 years. bob, i guess i'm asking the most fundamental question this is

friday evening which is going back to who did this or what did this? have we solved any of this mystery of a disappearing airplane? >> sure haven't. right now it's all a guessing game and it will be a guessing game unless they find something in the investigationtor background of these pilots -- and apparently they haven't so far, but unless they do -- or unless miraculously they find that some of this wreckage is from the plane and managed somehow to trace back where the main wreckage may be and fish up the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. unless either of those things happens it may remain a guessing game forever. >> and we don't know what was spot 1d,500 miles off perth has anything to do with this, do we at this point? >> we sure don't, no, not at all. i think the most interesting development of this day is this transcript that this london "telegraph" says they got ahold of and they published it, can't vouch for the authenticity of it, but they believe it's

accurate, of everything that was said between pilots and the controllers. we've had just the last phrase "all right, good night." that was the last thing we heard from the plane. but they say they got the transcript of ten minutes of conversation before the plane took off and then 40 minutes in flight and then up to -- and it goes up to the very broint they say "all right, good night." and people who've looked at it say it shows nothing but normal activity. just routine transmissions. what that would tell you if it's a real strint that nothing untoward came down in the cabin up to that point. nobody barged in or the co-pilot didn't go after the pilot, etc. >> let me go back to captain cox. then you have the conundrum here of absolutely no communication at that signoff point -- to your comment from the first officer, nothing! no conversation, no indication of anything went wrong. either you had a catastrophic event that prevented any more communication, any more transmission or shall be was pulling plugs, somebody was switching things off. and this is what doesn't -- if

everything was calm and professional to the very point of signoff and from that point forward there was no communication whatsoever, how do you explain it? >> i think you've got to look first and see what evidence we have and what we don't have. if you look at the device that shows the airplane on radar known as a transponder, we know that after the signoff from the malaysian controllers and before they would have contacted the vietnamese controllers, this device stopped. we don't know if it's electrical, we don't know if it was a component failure, we don't know if somebody switched it off. what we do know is with another uplink data link system known as k acars that the data stopped but the device continued to talk to the network, the satellites. and that takes somebody with a deep level of knowledge to be able to stop the data. it says that the components still worked, it says that there was still electrical power. so respectfully, i think that we do know more than we did. we're out of square one. we do have evidence.

it's not as strong as we'd like. it's not compelling or conclusive but we do have evidence. it says that something went on in that airplane. they did not or could not communicate via voice but it was electrically powered. it says it went to given points in space known as way points. that says the likelihood was that they used the flight management computer. somebody had to know how to program that. now, that's about as hard evidence as we have. >> what does that hard evidence tell us, to me, to everybody watching right now? what does it say could have happened? >> you know, there's so many speculations. i've been an accident investigator for 30 years and it says to me keep your mind open, every possibility remains on the table. there's some evidence that says somebody with knowledge interfaced with computers on the airplane. to go beyond that, we probably don't have the evidence to do it. >> but it does suggest something

other than a catastrophic event that prevented further communication. >> yes. >> some man-made decision was involved? >> it indicates right now, the evidence indicates that a knowledgeable individual had interaction with a computer and beyond that there was no communication. there was electrical power on the airplane, we know that. we know that there was electrical power on the airplane and available for several hours meaning greater than six. so put all of that together, it reduces the likelihood of a mechanical cataclysmic event on the airplane or an on board fire or some of the other speculations that have been raised on the internet and elsewhere. it doesn't eliminate it, but it reduces the likelihood. >> captain cox, what's what the prime minister of malaysia said. let's watch what he said last week, exactly what happened that way. characterizing to what happened to the missing plane. let's hear it in his words. >> these movements are consistent with deliberate

action by someone on the plane. in view of this latest development, the malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board. >> bob hager, now we go to the possibility of human involvement here, whether whatever reason it was done, there was some kind of human decision making going on on that plane, it wasn't mechanical failure. and the question is if you look at -- they're talking about the first officer having a habit of letting sbeem the cockpit. unofficially. maybe he was flirting with the passenger, whatever was going on. you have this discussion about who's on the plane. now wed that two people on the plane illegally that had bad passports but they were cast aside as just people trying to get to iran cheaply. that happens all the time in aircraft travel. but what do we have? are we going to have, like, now since we're not going to find the plane it looks like we're going to spend a lot of time

looking through the manifest? >> manifest, yeah. because on that point they said they were carrying lithium batteries which happens all the time but they have to be packaged just right and there was an accident that killed two crew members when lithium batteries got -- >> i mean the passenger manifest. >> passenger manifest, you've got to go back and look at all those things again because as we fail to bring something really hard forward you've now got to go back and revisit things that were dismissed earlier. they said they looked at those people that got on with false passports and they cleared them more or less. chinese said they cleared their people that were on the plane. still, since we come up with no answers now you've got to go back and revisit all those things because you might find something. you have to grasp at something because we have precious little here. >> captain cox, i thought as a guy who flies a lot, my family does, that i thought everything in the air was basically being tracked, we're all part of some traffic control screen somewhere, everyone had us on a

radar dot somewhere and now it remind me we're almost back to where we were in 1941 before pearl harbor where we lose the entire japanese air force somewhere over the pacific. i mean, how much are we blinded still as to what's going on in the air? >> well, we -- you are being tracked by air traffic control whatever you're with -- in an airplane. there's no question of that. if there is radar coverage then it is what is known as positive control. if you're out over the water, oceanic control takes over and pilots report given points in space and they report that to air traffic control who separates airplanes by time. we are in emerging technology that will give us much, much better updates realtime updates but according to the faa, we're still probably six to ten years from that being the norm or the primary means to separate traffic in oceanic routes. right now we're still using position reports overseas.

>> amazing. i thought we knew so much more. it's great having you experts on. robert hager, as always, my friend, and captain john cox. great to have you on this friday night. we're dam close back to square one anyway. coming up, anguish and incompetence with the search for flight 370 heading into the third week now. who's looking out for those families and who's holding the malaysian government accountable? plus, has any potential 2016 candidate for president had a busier week than hillary clinton? she may be a year away from announcing her candidacy but if you look at what she's been up to, you might conclude she's running or you might be worried she might not be. and while the obama administration looks to punish vladimir putin, his own people love what he's doing. moving to restore russian greatness. finally let me finish with the signs out there again this week that secretary clinton is indeed planning a presidential campaign. this is hardball, the place for politics. [ male announcer ] if you're taking multiple medications,

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it's been four years since president obama signed the affordable care act loo into law and a new poll shows more people disapprove than approve. but look at this. 41% of americans approve of the law versus 53% who disapprove. but of those 53% who disapprove, a pleuralty of them want people to make it work as well as possible. only 19% said they want elected officials to make it fail. interesting stuff, isn't it? we'll be right back. predicting the future is a pretty difficult thing to do.

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welcome back to hardball. for the family members of flight 370 it's been 14 days of pure anguish. we've seen the images out of malaysia families breaking down distraught by a government that has mishandled phases of this investigation. it's a roller coaster made worse by an agonizing waiting game and an excruciating drip, drips drip of information and speculation.

here's how one of the missing passengers' girlfriends described her emotional state during an interview with nbc's the "today" show. this was after she was told that australian satellites spotted debris. >> a friend called me with the information and i don't think i've stopped shaking since. you know we just finally settled into a normal routine of waiting, unhappy waiting, but at least we were going back to normal sleeping cycles and getting in and i've continued to teach at work and now this throws it all up in the air again. >> then there's malaysian politics, regional and racial tensions in that region which complicate matters even more. all we're left with these questions -- what happens if we never find flight 370? what happens to the families? what happens to malaysia's struggling government? who's held responsible and who holds them accountable? in a part of a world with a

volatile geopolitical ethnic set of tensions these questions are difficult to ask but at some point they have to be answered. jim keith was the u.s. ambassador to malaysia and daniel rose an aviation expert and attorney. he's represented families in several high-profile aviation disasters. let me go to former ambassador keith. this performance by the malaysian government has been uneven, raggedy at times. do you have a sense of what it is they're most nervous about? all countries would be nervous in a situation like this. what are their fears? >> chris, i think it's clear that they're not practiced and able to manage this many the spotlight of international scrutiny. they haven't had the experience necessary to pull this off. i don't think there's a conspiracy here. they're not holding back information on the basis of a calculated move. they're just not handling it well from the -- ones heart goes

out to the victims and you have to feel for their pain and some of that inflicted unnecessarily by the malaysian government but i don't think it's maliciously so. it's that something something of a wakeup call for the malaysian government that hasn't used the time it's had to increase the transparency and accountability of the government. did you fly malaysian airlines when you were on host? did you rely on them. >> on a regular basis and their safety record isn't bad. you have to go back to a couple of "new york times" the last 30 or 40 years i believe. so it's a professionally run airline and the got itself runs a country that's come a long way but this wakeup call is for them to focus on the distance they have yet to go as opposed to being pleased about how far they've come since 1957. >> mr. rose, this has been a frustrating day in the world. everyone was watching off the southwest coast from dawn last

night and that part of the world to see if we could find any of those two pieces of rubble which we hoped were rubble but now we'll never find out if they were apparently because we can't find them how long can the world support this expensive rescue effort. this attempt to al advantage some information? >> it's a good question. i mean, the first on obviously as everybody's pointed out is the families. this is a heart wrenching process for them and i really can't imagine an investigationtor handling of the families being done in a more disorganized and unprofessional way. and, again, it's -- i agree, it's not intentional but at some point you just have to say, you know, we need some help here and we need to do this the right way and that includes the investigation. there's no telling how long it will go on if it proceeds at this pace of getting drips and drabs of information that turn out to be inaccurate.

>> we have 239 people who are probably gone now and i think most people assume that now the question is if this was done because of a malicious action by terrorists or people who had a grudge or whatever their political purposes or mental inability -- instability that lead to this or whatever it was, let me just ask you a simple question. if this was done by human beings as the prime minister of malaysia said last sunday, my question is, does that relieve the government and its ownership of the airline of accountability here? they can blame it on someone who did something in the airplane? >> no, no. i mean, if there's a lesson we've all learned, the entire world has learned after 9/11 is that everybody's got responsibility for stopping what we all know is out there. and particularly the airlines. so, you know, not that i necessarily think that a deliberate act is what happened here but if -- if the facts lead in that direction you have to look at the airline.

they've got responsibilities in terms of security, in terms of screening, in terms of competency of pilots. and the law recognizes that. it holds the airline to the highest level of care for its passengers. if you're sitting in 15c and you buy a ticket to go from point "a" to point "b" you expect the airline to do everything that they're supposed to do to make sure you get there safely and that didn't happen here, i think we can all agree on that. >> so a passenger's mother, father, or husband could sue the you are aline for the -- for loss of life? >> that's true. that's true. the law recognizes that. there are some quirks in terms of whether you're an american citizen or you live the u.s. you have different rights and different ability to bring a lawsuit in the u.s. but there certainly are rights in other countries and malaysia and china for some of the other passengers as well against the airline. >> let me go to ambassador keith. >> are you familiar with anwar

ibrahim and the opposition and how that works over there and the pilots' loyalties with the opposition and having gone the trial within seven hours of taking off that day? how does that fit? i'm not saying we're looking for a necessary connection but what does it mean politically to the leader shape the pilot of this plane that's been lost was in the opposition? >> i wouldn't overinterpret that. i think the key lesson it seems to me associated with the politics of this is that this is a maturing political society. that is they haven't had the chance, the give-and-take and the battle of political parties and civil society to hone the skills necessary to do a better job of communicating in the midst of this crisis. so it's more along the lines of the fact that they haven't developed those skills because they haven't allowed that sort of opposition to play a role in society. only recently have they really

had a contested election. so it's more that broader point that the government needs to move in the direction of more transparency and accountment and to allow civil society to develop freely, freedom of assembly and speech more so than exists now. it exists to a degree but it's -- good for the government, of course, good for the people if they can allow that to happen. i wouldn't take it beyond that. i don't think there's a direct connection. certainly opposition would be the first to say that -- and anwar himself would be the first to say this is a tragedy and they wouldn't have had v wanted to have anything to do with causing it but certainedly government is in for criticism as a responsible actor and a leader in society because in the end the losers here are the malaysian people going beyond, of course, the families of the victims. but the malaysian people are the ones whose rep station being tarnished here. >> thank you for your service, in our foreign service, by the way. former ambassador to malaysia

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time for side show. the new sanctions that president obama announced yesterday have now frozen the assets of several russian politicians and businessmen in putin's inner circle. but who exactly are the folks bearing the brunt of those penalties? last night, jimmy fallon profiled some of them in his segment "tonight show special laive thes." >> first we have this russian politician sergei ax i don't knowoff. he was voted most likely to own a pair of strangling gloves. [ laughter ] next we have ukrainian politician victormedvedchuck. he was vote most likely to eat

charcoal chips as a snack. next up was victorian co-vich. he was voted most likely to be disappointed in his son weird al. . yanukovych. finally we have russian politician andre clishist, he was voted russian rob ford. there you go, guys. >> the russian government responded with sanctions of their own, issuing travel restrictions against several u.s. senators that bar them from visiting russia. most of them view those penalties as a bad of honor. senator dan coates of indiana took to twitter to point out how innocuous they are. he pointed out a top ten list of things he won't be able to do since putin banned him from russia. "i won't be able to complete my granddaughter's russian doll collection. i won't be able to ski on the slushy slopes of sochi. i'll have to cancel my tennis match with maria sharapova.

our summer vacation in siberia is a no go." next up, it's rare even in today's flakes a candidate identifies himself as "a right wing christian nut." but we've found one. a guy named mike mcfadden running for the republican senate nomination in minnesota just claimed in a fund-raising letter that i was talking about anymore a recent morning joe appearance when i referenced the dangers of such candidates to moderate republican voters. well, mr. mcfadden's self-described right wing christian nut, is that really how you want voters to think of you? finally, president obama defended his decision to appear on "between two ferns" with zach galifianakis last week, pushing back against the charge that lincoln would haven't done it. here's what he told espn on the radio program just yesterday. >> first of all, if you read back on lincoln, he loved

telling the occasion aal bawdy joke. and being out among regular folks and one of the hardest thing about being president is being in this bubble that is artificial and unless you make a conscious effort you start sounding like some washington stiff. >> whoa. up next, hillary clinton, she's here, she's there, she's everywhere. that tells me one thing -- i think she's running and you're watching hardball. the police to watch politics. .

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here's what's happening. four people are dead after a fire broke out at a new jersey

motel housing residents displaced by superstorm sandy. eight people were hurt. all others staying are accounted for. pope francis delivered a stinging warning to members of organized crime. he said there's still time not to end up in held which is what awaits you if you continue on this path. he made the remarks at a vigil for victims of mob violence. in michigan, a federal judge ruled the state's ban on same-sex marriage unrussianal. the state's attorney general has asked an appeals court to halt the ruling while he files an appeal. back to hardball. . >> i was leaving the state department, stepping off that high wire of american diplomacy. there'd be no more interview requests, no frantic media speculation about my plans, just peace and quiet in our little old chappaqua farmhouse up in the attic where i hang out. it has not exactly worked out that way. former secretary of state

hillary clinton was speaking to the association of american publishers when she joked about how her post-administration life was certainly not full of peace and quiet and her schedule this week is exhibit a. as nbc puts it, hillary clinton is laying the ground work for 2016 very actively. if you look around that week, she has been everywhere. tuesday night in montreal she blasted vladimir putin's moves into crimea. let's listen to the secretary. >> what putin did is illegal. it's against international law. it's not because we gave the poor little baltic states nato protection. and people need to say that and they need to be very clear that this is a clash of values and it's an effort by putin to rewrite the boundaries of post-world war ii europe and to -- [ applause ] -- if he's allowed to get away with that then i think you'll see a lot of other countries either directly facing russian

aggression or suborned. >> wednesday night after receiving an award from the american jewish conference, mrs. clinton created distance from obama on iran saying she's personally skeptical about a nuclear agreement on iran but she stands behind the negotiations with that country. she went on to add if the diplomatic track failed "every other option remains on the table." tonight she'll speak at arizona state university where she joins bill and chelsea and other family members to kick off the clinton global initiative's announcement for young leaders. and joe biden will travel to new hampshire this tuesday for an event highlighting workplace development. joining me is former pennsylvania ed rendell and michelle bernard, president of the bernard center for women, politics, and public policy. governor rendell, these statements out there do remind me of the hillary clinton who ran against barack obama in '08. i'd say several notches to his

right on foreign policy. >> yeah. i think so. but i don't think that's faked or insincere. i think that's where she is. she's always been fairly strong on foreign policy, more towards the hawk side than the dove side. i don't think there's any real change in that, chris. >> do you make -- do you have a sense that -- wait a minute, i fwesz that begs the question, is that politically astute or is that just the nature of who she is? >> i think it's the nature of who she is and it also happens to be fairly astute. i think the american people are very wary about the negotiations with iran. they're willing to see how they go but they're absolutely adamant about the fact that if they fail we should come down hard on iran. >> where do you think the democratic party is in light of the last five years of obama? do you think it sensed that the party has moved too dovish? that the president is too naive? do you think there's a sense that maybe hillary clinton was

right with a relatively hawkish position last time? it does seem like the old issue not between scoop jackson and the hard right or anything but the choice between, say, hubert humphrey centrist position and the more governist position. the party still seems to be back in that spectrum of debate. >> i think the debate is there and it exists. i don't think it's mutually exclusive but i think if i were to describe where the party is on foreign policy i think it's more towards the center, towards the humphrey position because i think that's where the country is. >> let me go to michelle bernard on this. it's interesting to watch the activity level of the former secretary of state. this is a -- for someone who is in retirement, if you will, i mean, really, this is a -- going out and speaking before huge audiences, i mean, the few times i've been before major audiences it is an overwhelming experiences psychologically. you have to get so up for it to face -- and the crowds she faces are now regularly large and they

really do take it out of you. you can't just walk before 5,000 people and not have it taken out of you and there she's doing it on a nightly basis it seems. big crowds. >> and she has been doing it since she left the state department. back in 2008 when she was running, you will remember that commentators frequently referred to her as -- hillary clinton as snow white and the seven dwarves, and i think right now what we are seeing is not really snow white but almost elizabeth i. hillary clinton is strong, she is throughout every single day. she has distanced herself slightly from the president when we talk about reaching a nuclear deal with iran on revisiting the affordable care act and how we deal with small and large businesses. people are looking to her leadership and they're also looking to her -- she is acting in the manner that we would see an acting president. every single day out there talking and talking about issues are very important, substantive national security, foreign

policy, health care, the rights of women. these are all issues that will be hot in the 2016 presidential race and she is laying the ground work for an absolutely, i think, phenomenal campaign should she decide to throw her hat in the ring. >> so we have now governor the potential of a battle between two very different personalities. an iron-like hillary clinton who knows what she is doing and is tough and joe biden who i imagine thousands of people like me think of him as my brother. he seems like a familiar person to the point where we see him and we wonder what he's going through and i understand from pretty good evidence and firsthand conversation with some people that he is really trying to decide whether to run or not and that means run against hillary clinton or not. >> yeah. i think it's a tough position for joe to be in. but i think he's doing the right thing which i still believe there's a chance -- not a very large one -- but a chance that hillary clinton decides not to run. he has to be out there because she f she would announce tomorrow that she's not running

he immediately becomes the leading candidate, no question about it. he's the only one who has a nationwide giver network and joe would be right in there. but joe is also a political realist and you look at that poll that showed among democrats nationwide hillary clinton at 73% and joe biden at 12%. you don't want to run with that being a score card. you can change 20 points, 30 points sometimes in politics, but, boy, i've never seen a 60-point margin change. >> so you don't think he'll frun she runs? >> i don't think he'll run because i think his givers are also hillary's givers and they will go towards hillary and deliver the message to him, joe, we love you, you've been a terrific vice president but we have to be for hillary this i'm. >> do you know any major political figure the northeast who would back the vice president against hillary clinton at this point? >> i guess the delaware senators and their significant people but

they're from the home state. >> chris, can i add, though -- >> yes, go ahead, michelle, your turn. >> a lot of this is also -- i would imagine is going to depend on what's going to happen with the mid-terms in 2014. if the democrats take a trouncing in the senate i believe that we're going see a democratic party that is sort of weary on the domestic front of the obama/biden ticket and i think that could significantly hurt senator biden if he decides to run whether hillary clinton is in the game or not and the other thing i would add is i sort of disagree with governor rendell that if mrs. clinton decides not to run that joe biden steps right in as number one. i think that the country looking for something different. i think senator gillibrand out of new york has done a phenomenal job as a senator and i think that there is room for her to do what barack obama did in 2016, come from nowhere. she has taken a huge leadership role in talking about military sexual assault and other issues. >> yeah, i don't think those are contradictory. i agree with both of you.

i agree that a lot of people who know joe biden would support him up front but i believe gillibrand is ready to go. absolutely ready to go. >> she is, but, chris, she won't get the vice presidential one on one which will be a problem. there will be four or five candidates in there. the vice president would have a tremendous advantage. i agree with michelle, he has the burden of carrying some of the obama biden policies but in a multicandidate field it would be tough to beat him. i think amy klobuchar would run and that dilutes kerstin ji gillibrand's base. he has a building advantage. >> i think we're a ready for a woman in 2016 and it's amazing to sit and watch -- regardless of what hillary clinton does, she's got big wings now, she is protecting everyone in that democratic base that could possibly run, she's protecting andrew cuomo in new york, protecting martin o'malley in maryland. >> michelle!

michelle! >> yes? >> have you evolved or what? are you a democrat? is this what i'm hearing? am i hearing this? >> i am someone who believes in the free market when the free market is fair and equal and believes in equality for african americans, women, hispanics and everybody else. >> that's a good statement. i love the statement but that didn't answer my question. you sound like a democrat. >> i think i've always been evolved chris. >> we all evolve. thank you, governor ed rendell who never evolves, he's always a good guy. and thank you micheller be around in. the west might not like what putin is doing but russians do. this is all about nationalism and restoring mother rush so that to its former glory for putin. so what's the best way for us to respond to that reality. that's ahead and this is hardball, the place for politics.

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we're back. as the standoff between russia and the west over the future of ukraine deepens, there's no sign that russian president vladimir putin is second guessing himself. putin's annexation has only hardened his resolve. his approval rating increased to 72% according to a poll by the all-russian center for public opinion. more than 09% of russians support reunification with crimea. you're seeing again the strength and power of good old nationalism. mark ginsburg is the former ambassador of morocco and simon marks is with feature story news. i guess there's one profound question for both of you and it's the toughest question. i think the trick -- ambassador ginsburg, tell me, do you think putin is surgical, smart, does the smart right move, the great opportunist but won't overplay his hand? that he will simply grab crimea back as he's done it because it was easy pickings given what happened in kiev or is he going

go around and constantly push against all the different near borders of his country for more influence? >> chris, we're seeing putin create his own monroe doctrine. he stole crimea fair and square and we're going to watch him engage in creeping annexation in order to establish a land bridge through ukraine territory that he's going to steal in order to connect russia, mother russia, with crimea. and we're going to watch him try to form and further unstable situations in eastern ukraine in order to do what he claimed he's going to do -- protect russian people everywhere. that's where he's going to have to be stopped now. when i say being stopped, a 21st century version of containment is going to be necessary to keep the baltic states, poland and other states along his eastern flank, from going berserk over the fact that he is now asserted his desire to protect russian people. >> let me ask you about that.

what would be his role? you say some sort of easement? what is he looking for? what does he want to get -- he can go into crimea from the eastern side? why would he have to come in wh to come in from the north? >> he wants to have a land bridge directly connecting russia with crimea, which he doesn't have. he's already started that process. he's going to continue to seize more ukrainian territory. the question is, is he going to provoke a direct military showdown with ukrainian forces over this, it remains to be seen. you're asking me, is he going to stop? i don't think he's going to be satisfied, he's going to keep this up and he's going to do what he can to grab inch by inch, because he knows in the end, whatever we may be doing in sanctions, that's not going to stop him from achieving his goals. >> what would his end game be,

russia, a de facto influence on the surrounding companies? what would the map of that part of the world look like ten years from now if he gets what he wants? >> he wants to take the countries that are bordering his western flank and basically prevent them from becoming saddled up with the european union, parts of georgia, which is already more or less annexed, he wants to prevent nato from being directly on mother russia's border, that's what he wants and he also wants to reexert influence on sizable russian populations. >> are we on the aggressive side coming from in from the west, are we pushing for nato membership? we have the baltic states, we don't want more, do we? >> that's one of the reasons why putin has been able to rear this nationalistic outcry in russia

because he's been extraordinarily fearful of the fact that we were approaching georgia as a potential nato country, the same thing with ukraine, that's what he's trying to prevent. >> okay. let me go to simon marks, it's your sense of where he's going and how careful he will be. what he's done so far, he's been easy pickings. he's been an opportunist, rather than the aggressive bear starting on his own tracks. what's your sense of what he wants to do? >> i think you're exactly right, chris, and going back to your first question, this is going to be more surgical in the weeks, months and years ahead. remember that vladimir putin is operating from a very different pr play book from everyone else. he's not going to run out of an electoral road, he's going to continue having power and influence. i think he's going to seize targets of opportunity, i suspect he will grab and hold

the ukrainian prince, be hit with sanctions, and then and only then, when the opportunity presents itself go after sown ukraine. there's no question that there's that sense of spiritual threat exhibited by what he's done over the last few weeks. >> go back to you, mark, isn't this just russian manifest destiny, like our own manifest destiny, that russia is not one of the countries in that part of the world, it's the country. >> i agree with simon, i don't think he's going to challenge the baltics. but he has said time and again that the greatest historical catastrophe that has befallen russia is the disintegration of the soviet union he wants a dictator ship that's ruling indefinitely russia.

that's what he wants. that's what we're going to wind up dealing with for years to come, it may not be come nimuco. 19th and 21st century. >> is he worried about the islamist danger to the south? >> i think he's also worried or should be about the economy. there are three legs to the putin stool, there's agrandizing russia territorially, there's a grand diesing russian to the great russia to the folks at home. but it's also about economic development. that's where the united states and it's allies really to hit exnomic sanctions. >> we'll be right back after this. instead of mailing everyone my vacation photos,

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let me finish this friday night with this. i think the signs are out there again this week that secretary clinton is indeed planning a presidential campaign. when she ran in 2008 she lost, she ran because of the central issue of the times, the ill conceived iraq war, she was on the hawkish side, obama was on the dovish side. little has changed, he's up there in montreal talking -- especially on middle east

policy, it's where she was in '08. it's where she is now. the fact remains that what the american people want from our future leaders is not the drift back to the old battle stations of wariness and skepticism, what they want is hope that the new leaders can steer us, find commonali commonalities, the facts of the future remain obvious and compelling. we need to avoid military confrontation with russia. that's number one. avoiding a military confrontation with military -- keeps us from catastrophe through the long, tricky years of the cold war. we need people at least as grbrn any. we need -- everything being on the table with regard to a failed negotiation to put off a nuclear weapons program there.

it's not as dangerous, but it's not as good as leaning in to find a better way to make the negotiations work. we don't need more war talk, we need more peace talk. that's what the american people want, we have had enough of wars. good evening, from new york, i'm chris hayes, the "new york times" reporting today the coke brothers are sharpening their electoral tools for the midterm, while the president warns democrats of getting, quote, clobbered if the midterms are dominated by low turnout. >> you may be a republican, or a democrat or a libertarian, i'm not here to tell you what to be. i am here to tell you, though that, you're right, especially