running or does run has more sway with the party than not running. >> mark murray, thank you. thank you all of you for watching another busy hour of this show. "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪♪ good afternoon, everyone. i'm john heilemann in for nicolle wallace. 4:00 in the east. midnight in moscow. the drums of war beat as pult vladimir putin is edging to an invasion of ukraine. in european, u.s. and the world the tension is on the rise. a crisis that looks inevitable. president biden met with the national security team at the white house. the administration has not closed the door on the idea of a peaceful resolution to the conflict agreeing to the idea of a summit between biden and

vladimir putin. the white house accepted that meeting in principle. assuming the delicate status quo is intact and russia doesn't invite before then and the same for a meeting between secretary of state blinken and sergei lavrov. while the attempts offer hope to avoid war there is still the situation on the ground where we have increased shelling and mortar friar separatists offering a preview of what could be a brutal offense i. this morning adviser jake sullivan described what we might see next. >> it will cost the lives of ukrainians and russians. civilians and military personnel alike. this will not be a conventional war between two armies. it will be a war waged by russia on the ukrainian people.

to repress them. to crush them. to harm them. that's what we laid out in detail for the u.n. as we anticipate the tanks will roll in the coming hours or days. >> if those tanks do roll across the border nbc news reports, quote the u.s. has warned the united nations it plans to kill populations in ukraine or send them to camps after an expected invasion. a grim, grim picture an prospect. late this afternoon vladimir putin delivered an aggressive televised address which will likely or could a rational for armed conflict. the recognition of two moscow backed breakaway regions in eastern ukraine.

could be a pretext for invasion if he decides to protect the so-called alleged independence. last hour the white house revealed it would impose sanctions in response. we have anticipated a move like this from russia. an executive order will prohibit trade. this eo will also provide authority to impose sanctions on any person determined to operate in those arias of crane separate from and would be in addition to the swift economic measures we have been preparing. the looming threat to peace in europe where we start this hour. yamiche syndor is here. also with us international

affairs analyst, former ambassador to russia, michael mcfaul and andrea mitchell, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent. this is no one to be with you than you four when all this stuff is happening. ambassador, i want to start with you. talk to us about what vladimir putin said in this speech tonight in moscow, what it means and the implications and is it really as bad as i characterized it in the lead-in to the block? >> i think it's worse. i'd like what you said be it is worse. first he met with the security council. and talked about why they needed to go ahead with the recognition of these two republics, the people's republics. luhansk and donetsk. that's what stalin imposed after

1945. there's an echo of that. then went on national television. i haven't had a chance to listen to it. a long speech. i listened to a lot of it in russian. it was a very, very angry speech. this is a man who feels agrieved, justified and sounded like much more to come besides recognizing the two republics as inspected countries and then he sat down with the two leaders, figurehead leaders and signed two agreements with each of them. one recognizing their independence and then two agreements about their military cooperation. in other words the two independent countries now are now allies of russia. >> the question, i don't speak russian other than maybe vodka and caviar in a bar in moscow.

others have said dark, aggressive, angry. the tone of it, you are a student of putin. been in the room with him on more than one occasion. is that for show when putin is like that or do you hear a tone of genuine agrievement that sets the hair on the back of the neck in a different place than the course of the last few weeks? >> it is not for show. he doesn't need to show anybody anything. he is the dictator of russia. he doesn't have have to worry about voting blocs and generals and all this -- way too much conversation about saving face and off ramps. that is not the political system in russia. putin's been in power for 22 years. so he doesn't listen to anybody. this is not for show and also wasn't -- i want to be clear --

doesn't want to have a summit and negotiate over things. i didn't hear that today. doesn't mean he won't change the view tomorrow but he sounded like a russian leader preparing the country for war. >> the most recent news from the white house and the sanctions but the white house is saying that they are open to the idea of a summit if there's not an out-all invasion beforehand. is that the kind of thing the white house feels like it needs to say and genuinely is but that they recognize that as they look at what's unfolding in ukraine and hear the tone and the substance of what putin is saying that that's a distant dream and saying it because they would be open to it and actually in private acknowledging that's an unlikely prospect? >> it's clear still that the president, president biden feels that vladimir putin made the

decision to invade ukraine but he continues to want to keep the door open to diplomacy and hear the president saying, i would be okay sitting down at the table with the president of russia if he doesn't escalate things. the west is making sure the consequences will be worse as vladimir putin escalates things. it is a sense of feeling that the white house based on the reporting want to make sure that they signal that diplomacy is an option and vladimir putin could have a peaceful solution but they want to make sure that vladimir putin is hearing the strength in president biden and the west conviction that if this gets through and gets as bad as experts think it will get is that this is something for vladimir putin to feel and feel the economic consequences of the actions. >> talk about the day.

biden meeting with lloyd austin and others. give me a flavor of the day and the white house backgrounding on, on the nature of the sanctions and what they hope to get from the sanctions and if they will be taken seriously. what's the kind of gist of how they put them forward and the expectations? >> expectations are that they're still dealing with a russian president to do what he thinks is in the best interest and may not be a rational player in this. there's that tiger team of experts working on this and gaming out scenarios. they understand that there might be consequences to the sanctions but the white house is trying to lean in to the experience in the room to give the presidents the options and the white house understands that vladimir putin is someone who has taken

escalatory steps in the past and will do so likely and they need to be prepared for this to be ugly essentially and the president last week and will continue to explain to the american people how it might impact america, gas prices here and the energy sector and as of course president biden is making the decisions about eastern europe, afghanistan, the different foreign policy consequences and domestic policy consequences from that withdrawal that he defends is hovering over this. >> rick, a lot depends on vladimir putin. in some ways everything depends on putin and "the new york times" piece talks about the manner if putin invades the manner and what that will set in motion. here's the quote from the story.

putin's choice could determine world action. the strategic choices may make a huge difference in how the world reacts. striking the approach that officials think is likely it would cause the violent battle of european territory since nazi surrender in 1945. is that -- talk about that how putin weighs out the question of a full-scale blitzkrieg and calculates to the point of being rational and how does he factor the sanction question in to those calculations about what to do next and how to do it? >> i'm going to keep track of the questions by writing them down. first of all, we have had the

scenario of an incursion along the lines of talking about 1945 as though giving hitler that small bit of czechoslovakia would have been enough. putin wouldn't have the troops there to make an incursion into southeastern ukraine. it seems to me the administration is pretty right all along saying he doesn't just care about this regime. he cares about kyiv and going there. as far as sanctions, john, i applaud the administration for wanting to have these very, very severe and strong sanctions but sanctions will not stop vladimir putin from invading. and sanctions will not get him to withdraw from ukraine if he does invade. it is the only tool we have. we don't have a military

alliance with ukraine. ukraine is not a member of nato. ukraine is on its own facing the incredible armada of russian strength and to go to this idea of whether put season a rational player. mike spent more time with putin than i have but i spent three hours with him in 2008 in moscow. the thing that was so clear to me and faye moussely said in that interview the greatest tragedy was the dissolution of the soviet union. the smoke coming from his ears talking about this and that hasn't changed and dealing with somebody who is not a purely rational actor in my opinion and an invasion over ukraine borders on madness. >> i knew you could handle the try par tide question and brought the rabbits home.

andrea, i'm going to ask you about the reporting in a second, but first this. as someone who's spent time around nato over years and maybe as well as sourced and well versed a b the experience as anyone i know, what do you think is as we get closer to this, what is your sense of whether as rick said, ukraine's not in nato but does nato -- how does nato think about this? is there a degree of conviction in nato about what's going on right now as the biden administration is saying loudly in public? is that real? does it hold? what does it mean if rick is right and looking at a full-scale incursion, what happens next? >> that is the big question. i got back from munich last night and initially a skeptic and writing letters of scholz

not going along. i was writing stories based on obviously what was happening on the ground and that is not what i saw this weekend in munic. nato is pulled together. stronger than ever. unexpected unintended consequence of vladimir putin's policy is that he's created the nato monostir from his view that he has always not wanted which is nato on his doorstep and nato united. even macron with the re-election ambitions understandable, boris johnson with the weak political base given the performance on covid and a lot of other things and how close he would normally be to being toppled, with those weak allies and a new german chancellor so dependent on natural gas and all of that, they're absolutely united now.

i think yes if putin had been a little bit more smarter and tried bites, tried to go around the edges perhaps they could have broken the nato alliance but not with a full bore invasion which is what the u.s. expects and i have been told the meetings in munich and everything taken from the intelligence and what the vice president indicated and what the president of the quite said friday night. this is the latest intelligence. we think he can go all the way to kyiv and may well do that in the next couple of days. everything that we were told in the past weekend reinforced that. saying for weeks is he a rational okay tor? is this philosophical? is this political, tactical? is this the core ideology and the kgb guy from east germany?

what you have seen and what i have raid in the translation that we get, not from their task or anybody else but from our people in moscow this is an angry putin as mike was saying and this is not a man who's going to take small bites. he did not assemble nearly 200,000 troops and the naval blockade and the s-400s to belarus, this is a guy surrounded ukraine and going to take it and zelensky is told to go to the polish border and the reinforcement of nato hear that they convene the north atlantic council, the action arm of nato and done it once in the 70-plus history and it was when we were attacked in 9/11. >> we talked about at the beginning of the show the letter

from the united states, the u.t. that insists that russia is carrying out human rights abuses following the invasion and it's chilling. these acts which in past russian operations of tarktded killings, kidnappings, unjust detentions and torture likely target those that oppose russian actions and dissidents in exile in ukraine, journalists and vulnerable populations and lgbtq persons and information that says that there are lists of identified ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military

occupation. peaceful exercises a resistance from civilian populations. so the administration has been adamant that u.s. troops will be involved if the sovereignty of a nato country is threatened. if the stuff in this letter takes place the u.s. reaction is going to be sanctions? is that plausible that that would be the u.s. response to war crimes, atrocities, human rights abuses on the scale and type that's outlined in this letter? >> i don't know how to answer that because you're right. the president said it and others have said it americans leave now because we will not send american men and women in uniform in a nonnato country to

rescue you. this is ukraine and the president said with lester this would be world war. two weeks ago. i don't know. i don't know how they would -- how they would deal with it but i would suchl if the people are sent to camps that's russia proper and not going to putt them in camps in ukraine which is where they're going to be involved in an ongoing insurgency and mired in it. there's no question to take kyiv in two days. the tanks can roll down the highway from belarus. they have air cover. they can parachute in. we saw the test firings this weekend but can they hold it? and what he did say in that speech, denying the letter, the content. the intelligence behind it but what putin said in the translation i read was that they

know that there are people trying to organize another revolution like 2014. so michael will have to tell us what this means but john brennan told me a couple hours ago that they have had credible intelligence, the russians have, from inside the ukraine, the sympathize everies and three members of parliament who are working for russia while being in the ukraine parliament and zelensky is surrounded. and so they have lists of people who would be insurgents and journalists. what does this remind you of? this is chilling. there is the 1940's analogy. >> we'll take a break and come back. mike, you made the reference to the one we think about right now talking about lists and camps. it's a really dark moment.

and because it's such a dark moment i'll make you stay here. you are the four i'm going to make stick around to talk some more to understand it better. we'll talk about that more after the break and the crisis at home with the biggest voices on the right with rhetoric that sounds a lot like kremlin talking points and the former president donald trump's legal troubles. those just keep getting worse. a trail of lawsuits against former president trump can proceed and suggesting that trump could be held responsible for the insurrection. all those stories and more when we continue after this. don't go anywhere. r isth don't go anywhere. or ulcerative colitis, stelara® can provide relief, and is the first approved medication to reduce inflammation on and below the surface of the intestine in uc.

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we are back now with our guests. picking up where we left off and, mike, i said i would come back to you because that's a grim round and you kicked it off and made the analogy and i want to get into the question andrea took a shot at it. there's a number of thing that is follow on the question but i want to start with the question of the vladimir putin you know, i assume you're going to tell me because i know your view is right that the human rights abuses and lists and camps are a possibility with putin. do you think they're something that we could actually see in the near term horizon? what do you think the u.s. and

nato strategic options and imperatives within the world we live in might be? >> well, first on the analogy, there are some things beginning to the beginning of world war ii and some not. putin is not hitler. i don't think he has the same ambitions and want to be careful about that. >> yeah. >> but there are some very striking parallels of annexation, protecting ethnic russians and germans and the fundamental one. the versailles treaty in 1918 considered unjust by german leaders not just hitler. putin thinks that the post-cold war order is unjust to russia. with respect to your question, i don't know. i think it's a very important one. i think andrea rightly reacted

to what you said with some unease because right now we're in this and strakt moment. right? right now it's war, sanctions, war, sanctions. we haven't seen war and the atrocities. if any of the scale of the war happens, when tens of thousands of people are dying and god forbid if the lists mentioned here starts to happen -- i want to make this personal. i have friends in ukraine. i'm sure they are on the list. if that happens sanctions as a response feels tepid and a reaction that president biden is facing. i hope there's not a full scale invasion but everything is pointing to that and in that moment for the world it is very hard to say, well, we'll make it

harder to do business in dollars. >> does putin not believe that the sanctions will be imposed because he thinks -- he doubts the resolve of the u.s. and nato but if the sanctions are imposed he doesn't care? >> both. does he care? things like that. i want you to set that aside for a minute. right? i want you to get in to putin's head. he's not worried about the stock price of the bank next week or the economy tanking over the next years. he is thinking about what will russian history books say about vladimir putin 50 years from now. he wants it to say that they collapsed wrongly and that i was

the guy that restored russia aez a great power and in the interim noise in the economy and the suffering he doesn't care about. let's just remember. i'm a professor. i teach about sanctions generally speaking and a simple truth. the larger the country the harder for sanctions to have an effect. if people suffer vladimir putin doesn't care. >> we have sat across from power mad politicians and one thing is that in some ways putin shooting for history here there's one outcome which is that i restored russian greatness and i failed

but i tried. they're both valorous in his mind and the history books will remember him as the one that tried to restore russian greatness. this is a specialty of yours. axios had a thing to quote. the russian disinformation frenzy seeds the ground work for ukraine invasion. newsguard identified three of the most common false narratives propagated by the russian. a coup in 2014. politics is dominated by nazi ideologies. they're subjected to genocide. all three are false. we can say that here on the air. and yet my question is do native

russians buy them? how important are they to the strategy that putin is undertaking if invasion is his game? >> let's remember, john, that ukraine was the laboratory for russian disinformation in 2013, 2014 which he then transposed to the u.s. the agency in st. peters burke that we know about the efforts against ukraine in 2013 and 2014. that was their textbook. by the way, ukraine has always been the kind of laboratory for cyber warfare for russia. when we see this invasion happen we'll see cyber warfare at a scale that we haven't ever seen before and maybe here. i want to -- he doesn't see

himself as a communist leader or stalin. he sees himself as peter did great. as the man who created a ruse. he has a mystical feeling about russia. that's the thing that motivates him. the history books and other thing to say about sanctions, the counter pose of sanctions is a figure he cares about. the price of oil. when war starts it shoos shoots up. i remember my boss said that the russian economy works when oil is $100 a barrel. it is going to be. >> i want to get to andrea and quick on joe biden questions. so yamiche first, is anybody starting to talk at all about

what happens after sanctions, when sanctions don't work and escalates to the point that mike and rick -- we have been talking about this. sanctions seem like weak beer. are people having the conversation about after sanctions or a verboten topic around the white house? >> the white house and president biden is clear. they don't see a reason to have a military operation against russia. saying to lester holt once officials shoot that's a world war why president biden wants to avoid that and gaming out scenarios here about sanctions and not been based on my conversations about sort of things that happen outside of diplomatic saxzs. with american troops going there to support nato allies, spills

out across ukraine that's a different conversation and those conversations are happening but in terms of what the united states would do to try to defend the sovereignty of ukraine sanctions is what the white house is focused on. >> andrea, this is your last word on joe biden. there are things that vladimir putin is doing and objectives and some clearly relate to the role in history and russia's role in the world is. doesn't seem to me disputable that part of what's going on is vladimir putin testing joe biden. i guess i ask you as someone that covered joe biden well and seen him react. do you think he sees it that way? do you think he sees this as a test that vladimir putin is personally testing him? do you think that's how biden perceives it?

if he does how do you think he thinks about it with calculating a response? >> i think that joe biden has a great deal of ego and confidence in the foreign policy ability and gets very defensive about the criticism from people like bob gates, the former defense secretary describing him coldly and critically after gates left office. i think that his confidence from being chairman of the foreign relations commit tee, the willing bs to do what he did in afghanistan and get out believing in it when his own advisers calling from europe saying this -- probably reported -- no. i guess in the woodward book this is stereo phonic. when he first went to the nato meeting in advance of what happened in the nato meetings

and geneva in june. i don't think that he sees himself being tested. i think he feels that he is up to this task. and that it's vladimir putin who will end up mired in ukraine the way america was mired in afghanistan for 20 years. >> thank you so much for spending the first 37 minutes with me. mike is sticking around. kremlin talking points from figures on the right here in america. that's next. america. that's next.

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but thanks to wayfair, i do love my kitchen. yes! ♪ wayfair you got just what i need. ♪ with russian president vladimir putin seemingly on the verge of invading ukraine some defenders are coming from maga world. take a listen. >> why is it disloyal to side with russia but loyal to side with ukraine? they're both foreign countries that don't care about the united states. >> we have to make tough choices and we have to put american security interests first and that means to focus on china and focus on our own borders and ask european allies to do more. >> anyone paying attention heard the sounds of the war drums beating. the media desperately wants to get off the raging crime and covid. so ukraine has to be a new shiny

object. >> friend charlie sykes lays out the dangers with quote. what we can know is that putin is fully aware that he faces a divided u.s. and voices on the right are chanting the propaganda. putin can be forgiven if he thinks it's the maga world. and he may be especially emboldens if he believes that trump himself may return to the oval office. joining me now is clint watts. now a distinguished research fellow and the aforementioned charlie sykes from the bulwark and mike mcfaul is back with us. charlie, i guess -- when you watch those maga people, those people on the network that say those things and josh hawley

with the little tiny hands that helped to lead the inrecollection is it possible to overstate the damage that donald trump has done to -- not to america in some ways through the republican party by embracing vladimir putin the way he's done? >> no. and of course, now we are seeing the mask taken off. there's a long tradition of dissent against american foreign policy and needs to be respected but this is an extraordinary moment where you have vladimir putin's disinformation being channelled through american politics. you could dismiss the voices except that look vladimir putin has the measure of donald trump. remember, he stood next to him in helsinki and donald trump sided with vladimir putin over his own government. has weakened nato. willing to shake down the government of ukraine. you know? keep in mind all of those things that have happened and now you

haefr all the of these voices that vladimir putin has to know are close to the maga world taking his side, who are, you know, smearing ukraine and ukrainian officials and providing justifications for what vladimir putin is doing and in vladimir putin's mind he sees a weakened quite and you have to ask whether or not he think that is the west will blink and whether or not if donald trump comes back to the white house that he will achieve a triumph beyond his wildest imaginings of a few years ago. >> clint, i'm a student of yours. i learn every time we talk about how this stuff works and you explained what vladimir putin was up to in 2016, trying to sow division and create the environment we now see and it

seems as though what we are watching right now is not just that he did that in 2016 helping to elect donald trump and now a context in which the territorial ambitions in europe enhanced by the aftereffects of the things in this country in 2016. this is a tweet from vindman they will have blood on their hands. putin and the regime perceived opportunities because fools suggest the u.s. divided and it is i would say. and vladimir putin has a big part in doing that. place this in the context of the information war that you study so closely. >> it is active measures to run through force of politics rather than the politics of force and while vladimir putin is exposed for the disinformation, the

biden administration, the nato allies and even people that might be pseudofans of putin recognize the disinformation as a pretext for war and don't believe it and only hear it in gop in america. a strangest thing i have ever seen and watching this what russia was able to do and able to advance is with the elevation of voices that are sympathetic to russia's view. donald trump being one and then the surrogates. it is comical. george pop lop douse was the one that triggered and led to this coming out into the public and when you look at this coming through prior to 2016 the first people i talked to about russia disinformation were gop senators. post-2016 it is an inversion.

that is able to happen through this constant media and information campaign from moscow. >> mike, i wanted you to weigh in on this and i earlier suggested that putin is a student of american politics and some objectives aimed at u.s. domestic politics and ask you on the base of what charlie and clint talked about how much this is -- like charlie suggests is part of this, in fact, and this is some people will ask, is part of what he is doing in ukraine as an objective, think about it this way, one thing to happen to be good is stealing a blow to joe biden and open the door back to donald trump coming back to the white house? >> well, i would say two things. i don't know that particular piece to speculate about that

but i do know and i've finished a book on putin's ideological campaign around the world, in europe and the united states, disinformation as we talk about, right? to divide us and make us weaker. there are real ideas, the decadent liberal west, lgbtq values. have to be against them. he focused in russia. the last decade and a half he focused on the world and today lots of ideological allies. the group you talk about mr. trump and the people around him in this country and does two things. one it makes us weaker when we are weaker. senator hawley says be tough on china. how can we do that? dealing with china and russia

and iran are our values. we are democrats. we believe in ideals of democracy and for the fight with china that is our most strongest instrument to compete with them. ships and boats and that's -- we can be equal. they don't get that. when tucker carlson said two countries fighting. no. one is a democracy. one is an autocracy. russia. and that part they don't get and very dangerous. one last thing. this is an echo of earlier. this was happening in the 1930s. >> oh boy. ambassador, clint, thank you. charlie, you're sticking around a federal judge said that donald trump could be held responsible for the attack on january 6 and letting three civil lawsuits against the former president move ahead. that's next. e ahead.

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from an authoritarian abroad to an authoritarian here at home, a federal judge has cited donald trump's, quote, own words and actions as evidence to suggest that he was in a conspiracy with extremists to overturn the 2020 election. district judge meeta rejected trump's claims. in a scathing 112-page opinion,

the judge said that trump's words show that he and the proud boys and oath keepers, quote, pursued the same goal and that trump would have known his words were understood as a, quote, call to action. and that his response to the violence made it all the more plausible that he was involved in a, quote, tacit agreement with the rioters. joining us now, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade and charlie sykes, who is still here. barb, this opinion is a barn burner. i could quote from it, maybe i will, but first i want to ask you what you make of it and why it's important. >> well, legally, john, the reason it's important is it says that these lawsuits can go forward. ordinarily, a president is able to use immunity to get out from under civil lawsuits. anything he does within the scope of his presidency is covered by immunity but the courts say he wasn't acting as president. he was acting as a disgruntled candidate and for that reason, all that behavior may be the

subject of a civil suit, but importantly, he links up his behavior with that of the oath keepers and the proud boys. i think that is an avenue that ought to be explored by criminal prosecutors because there is a statute that makes it a crime to conspire with others to intimidate or prevent someone from doing their job, who is a federal officer, and that person in this case is mike pence. so even if he didn't intend to incite the riot, if he was just trying to intimidate mike pence with his conduct there, that could be not only the basis for a civil suit but also criminal charges. >> charlie, i read this opinion but it's so obviously true that it almost seems kind of redundant to say, but i will say this judge has a colorful way with words, compares trump's january 6th rally speech to telling an excited mob that corn-dealers starve the poof in front of corn-dealer's home. nice turn after phrase. i like that. and compelling. do you think that -- where do you think this is headed in terms of both the legal and political implications of it? does it matter to trump? does this have any real impact?

or is this just another turn of the screw that's part of a larger series of legal things that are kind of bearing down on the former president? >> well, that's hard to say, but john, this is just a remarkable moment. we have been talking about this for six years, but think about this. i was thinking about what ambassador mcfaul just said about america standing up to china at a moment when we are so bitterly divided and here we have this evidence that the former president of the united states engaged in seditious activity. that he abused his office. that he was part of this effort to block the peaceful transfer of power. this is an amazing moment, and i think the positive thing that we need to focus on is the fact that there are still avenues to hold him accountable. i think the great tragedy would be if donald trump was not held accountable for his conduct in all of this. so, you know, whether it's going to be the department of justice or whether it's going to be the january 6th commission or whether it's going to be the civil lawsuits, you have to hope

that something comes of it, that there are consequences to this and that people are paying attention to what this man did and tried to do to this country at a moment of great peril and of great crisis. >> barbara mcquade, charlie sykes, could spend a lot longer with you. if it weren't for ukraine, we would have. thanks for spending the time we did have together. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts right after this quick break. "deadline white house" starts right after this quick break first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. it was really holding me back. standing up...

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he's going to recognize them. that could be the first step toward a full annexation, just like he did in crimea where he recognized it as -- or annexed it to be part of russia and moved in very large military units there to protect it. and i think if he does that in eastern ukraine in those separatist areas, that is a -- i think that will precipitate military engagement between the ukrainian and russian forces

leading to, i think, maybe a full-scale war. >> hi again, everybody, it's 4:00. 5:00. 5:00 in new york city. midnight in kyiv, ukraine. i'm john heilemann in for nicole wallace and continuing our coverage of the escalating situation in ukraine. just a few hours ago, we heard russian president vladimir putin do exactly what you heard former cia director john brennan there warning about, putin formally recognizing the independence of two moscow-backed breakaway regions in eastern ukraine. russia has been supporting armed separatists, a move that the "new york times" describes this way. quote, russia's recognition of the two regions could allow separatist leaders to request military help from russia further easing a path for a military offensive, ukrainian officials say. ukraine would likely interpret that as russian troops entering ukrainian territory. in response to putin's move, president biden is set to issue an executive order sanctioning russia but made clear these measures are separate and from

and would be in addition to the severe economic measures the white house has been preparing if russia invades ukraine further. all of this following a weekend of signs that we are on the brink of war breaking out, including a frightening warning from the u.n. high commissioner for human rights, who said that it had received credible information that russia is planning to kill and arrest ukrainians after an invasion and has created lists identifying individuals they'll target and potentially send to, quote, camps. the crisis in ukraine is where we begin this hour. nbc news pentagon correspondent courtney kube is here. also with us, nbc news chief foreign corner richard engel and nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons is in moscow. the site of so much of the important -- the triggering event today, vladimir putin's speech, we talked in the earlier hour with some analysts about that, including mike mcfaul, i'm curious on the ground there how that long, dark, aggrieved and

potentially influential and -- speef with great implications played out on the ground in moscow. >> reporter: well, one, i think, important insight, john, while president putin was speaking, we were actually out on the streets of moscow talking to ordinary russians. we spoke to a handful but every one of them said they wanted peace. none of them said, we support a war in ukraine, we think president putin should go to war in ukraine so i think there's a difference between what the russian people believe and want and what president putin said tonight. that being said, of course, president putin still does have huge support here in russia. i think another reflection that's important too, just a day since on "meet the press," secretary blinken, again, talked about a severe response, massive consequences, if russia should make a move like recognizing those areas of eastern ukraine. what i think you saw in president putin today was not a man who's frightened.

he was leaning back. he looked aggrieved and angry, at times even ranting, waving his arms around. he did not look scared and i don't think he is scared and i think he's not scared of sanctions because he's built up a huge economic fortress, if you like, in billions of reserves. i think he's not scared because i think his inner circle are already sanctioned and know that they and their families will never be able to leave russia so in a certain sense for them, at least, there's nothing to lose. so i think there's a reality there, and now, as you mention, just as we're hearing from the white house and european capitals that there will be sanctions, there are reports that president putin's forces are already moving into eastern ukraine and i think what we're beginning to see is the sanctions that are going to be imposed aren't going to be as strong as secretary blinken suggested, because the west is waiting to see if president putin does more. so, once again, with you have a picture of a russian leader who is prepared to kind of wield his

military power, if you like, in order to, you know, get what he wants in inverted commas, and a west that continues to be anxious and nervous about what he might do next and is continually calibrating their response. listen, in the end, we'll have to see whether president putin is nervous about what the white house and other western leaders -- western capitals have been proposing, whether he does make further military moves, if you like. i think some of it will depend on what happens on the ground, but i do think we have to be realistic about the president putin we saw today, the president putin that frankly we've seen for years, the president putin whose speech today, while -- was quite astonishing, was in many ways a repeat of his speech that he's been making for 15 years, whether that president putin is really just hell bent on the process that he sees playing out with ukraine, what he talked about today, or whether in fact anything that leaders in the

west are saying is going to have an impact on him. >> richard engel, you've been in ukraine for the better part of the last two months. this is a big day in this unfolding crisis, and the combination of putin's speech and the reaction in the white house and then potentially some things that are actually unfolding on the ground. what's the reaction where you are in ukraine right now to this, like i say, rather eventful day in terms of how this crisis might unfold? >> reporter: well, the ukrainian government is saying, start sanctioning now. don't wait any longer. and this is the argument that they have been making since this crisis began and they have been making it ever more clear. that the u.s. and european countries should not wait until russia acts and then impose punishments, which may or may not work, that russia is starting to act now, had already been acting with the disinformation campaign, and that they need to start punishing russia in order to show the -- show vladimir putin that they're serious and to try

and deter him from taking further action. tonight, there was a sense that this was perhaps just the first step, that this was -- could have been worse, that this wasn't a declaration of war, that there wasn't an all-out assault from all sides on this country, that it was a recognition by russia of the sovereignty of an enclave already controlled by russia, but a deep concern that this is really just the first bite and that there will be more, and that in the coming days, perhaps even tomorrow or tonight, that there could be some sort of invented provocation and that it would allow putin to continue advancing not just into the separatist areas but beyond. because ukrainians will say, and have told me time and time again, that this entire campaign by putin is based on lies. it is based on the fact, first, that putin claims that there is

a genocide going on against the people of those separatist enclaves. as you said, i've been here for the better part of the last two months, i've gone up and down that border area, i've spoken to many russians who have -- many ukrainians who have relatives inside the separatist areas and there simply is not a genocide going on. genocide is not something you miss. it is not something you can report on the fringes of and not notice that it's happening. nor is there a massive ukrainian military offensive going on against russia or against the separatist enclaves. we would have noticed i. it's not happening. so those two basic facts are lies, that vladimir putin says he has gone into these areas to save the people from a genocide, a genocide that's not happening, and in order to save them from attacks by the ukrainian government, which are also not happening. so, it is very possible that there will be more lies, more invented provocations that would

allow further expansion, and that, i think, is what ukrainians are worried about and why they're saying that sanctions need to come now before the situation escalates and escalates in a way that they think is predictable. >> richard, there's a "washington post" headline right now, just a few minutes old, that reads, putin orders peace keeping troops to separatist regions of ukraine. russian president vladimir putin signed decrees as moscow recognized the breakaway regions' independence. we talked about that already but the notion of peacekeeping troops being ordered into the separatist regions with the agreement of cooperation between the heads of those two regions, that news, obviously, it's midnight where you are. when ukraine wakes up in the morning, and faces the reality of potential russian troops of this kind moving in, what will be the reaction to that in addition, on top of -- i'm speaking not so much about what they will call for in terms of immediate sanctions but in terms

of how the country will -- what the mood and attitude of the country will be. i know they've been kind of bracing for the next shoe to drop here for a while. will this be seen as that next shoe dropping and what will that feel like there on the ground among the people you spend a lot of time with? >> so, there are already russian troops in this area. the only difference is they have not been acknowledged by. by most accounts, there are about 3,000 troops, maybe there are more right now, but as of yesterday, there were about 3,000 russian troops and about 30,000 armed separatists in an area of roughly 2 million population of which about 600,000 of them, some say 700,000, have russian passports. so, it is an area where the people are russian citizens or many of them are russian citizens, there are already russian troops. they use the russian ruble. it is already very much a part of russia. what you didn't have before this

was a formal recognition, and now with russian troops going in as peacekeepers, overtly, that means russia's extending its security blanket over this territory, which gives it the ability to say, openly, we are there, and we now take responsibility for what happens, and those who attack this area are also now attacking russian forces and will have to face the consequences of russian forces, and putin actually spelled that out very explicitly in his speech. he said that -- he called on the ukrainian government to immediately stop its attacks on the separatists, attacks that are not happening, and said if the ukrainian regime, he called it, does not stop those attacks, it will bear the consequences for the bloodshed. >> i want to get to courtney for the domestic side in a second but i got to go back to keir because of what putin is doing here and ask you real quick, keir, you know, this was -- when putin gave the speech, we read it and heard it and people said,

this could be a pretext for an incursion, for an invasion. does it feel to you like the fact that these troops have now been ordered in, that this marks another turn of the screw, as i've said to richard, towards where we're headed, which is a full-scale incursion? again, another thing we discussed in the last hour, which is, will putin go in all the way in a major blitzkrieg or will he try to nibble away at ukraine on the ground there right now, what's your sense of it at this hour, and whether there is now an inevitability to what we're about to see unfold? >> well, i think we've got to be very careful to take one step at a time, to report what we're being told by intelligence analysts, but to not overread, so look, i think that what we saw in crimea was president putin's forces go in with burial any conflict at all. it's possible that we now see that in donbas because ukraine, kyiv, will be desperate for

there not to be a further conflict. plainly, it breaks the minsk agreement so i think we'll see these sanctions come into play. other than next steps by the russians, are there then just the nature of conflict, does it spiral? we don't know yet. we do know, of course, that president putin has a lot of forces arranged around that border. i will say one thing to finish, though, john. what we did see today was carefully choreographed, so we saw president putin's security council meeting. it was clearly an hour and a half of staged, managed conference with the result already planned. by the end of the day, we saw president putin signing those decrees with the separatist leaders beside him, separatist leaders who had been on russian television earlier in the day asking president putin by name to sign those decrees and then fireworks tonight celebrating the signing of those decrees. that is a choreographed day. that is a day planned and choreographed by president putin.

the question is, what other plans does he have? >> courtney, this is, as keir just said, a planned and choreographed day, and not a day unanticipated by this white house. something that president biden's been signaling and that particular scenario that's played out today is one that white house officials have anticipated, but talk a little bit about how this day unfolded. president biden meeting with his security -- national security team, then coming out and making announcement about these sanctions. there's been phone calls between biden and zelensky today, a separate call with macron and scholz. just narrate the day for me about how it's taking shape on the ground in ukraine. >> even here in this building, the chairman of the joint chiefs, general mark milley, he had a conversation with his ukrainian counterpart today and it's important to note that this is his third such conversation with him in just the past several days, so they are talking to them a lot. another thing that has been expected in addition to this

recognition of these separatist areas is what vladimir putin may do. so we've been hearing a lot about these potential false flags or these pretexts for a potential invasion of ukraine. well, as part of that, u.s. officials have been explaining to me that, look, if they decide to recognize these areas, then we should expect that vladimir putin as part of all of this destabilization, that he will say, look, now that we have russian-speaking people who are in danger, they are in an area that is destabilized, that is potentially unsafe for them, now that we are recognizing this area, i'm going to send peacekeeping troops in. so this is something that, again, you know, we hear so much about, is vladimir putin a rational actor? much of what we are seeing him do, he has been laying out, so last july, he wrote this very long op-ed, you know, about all of this, planning all of this, and this is just another step in what u.s. officials and u.s.

assessments have believed he might do here. it is part of this false flag pretext conversation that we have been hearing about, so now the big question is, if putin or when he sends peacekeeping troops into these areas, as richard has already pointed out, there already are russian troops there. they just don't acknowledge them. some of them are in plain clothes and there's russian fsb, russian special operators and civilian intelligence officials there as well. if putin sends in peacekeeping troops under this guise, is that an invasion? that's one of the questions that we're asking here. what does that mean? >> right. >> so, that's sort of the next shoe that we're waiting to drop here, john. >> well, yes, and courtney, just sticking with you here, you know, a question we've been talking about, which is, to the extent that all these things have been anticipated and that much of what has happened, although it's been kind of terrifying to watch in various ways over the course of the last couple weeks as we've gotten

closer and closer to the brink of war, there's a level of predictability to it, and nothing has happened here that has shocked anyone once it's started. once the kind of wheels were in motion here, none of it's really surprised anybody, so if you think that's right on the basis of your sources, what they say about this, they must understand that sanctions are seen widely by almost no one as likely to deter vladimir putin, which raises the next question. you're sitting over in a building right now that doesn't -- is not the sanctions building. that's not what they do at the pentagon. so, is there -- what are the discussions like about the next phase? if sanctions don't work to deter putin, what happens then? >> there's still no discussion, according to the officials who i'm speaking with, of any u.s. military component to this. so the one thing that has been shocking about this entire situation is just how shocking it is. and what i mean by that is, there's still this unbelievable or this disbelief that vladimir

putin is actually going through with this. but the reality is, 190,000 troops and plain clothes military, just an unbelievable array of military equipment around ukraine right now. people have gotten to the belief that this is very likely to happen at this point, and it's going to be a pretty large-scale invasion when it does. but you're right. what does this -- what's the next step? the u.s. officials i'm speaking with are saying one of the reasons putin's going forward with this is because he does not see these sanctions as either long-term or particularly biting to him and his inner circle, despite what we're hearing from the biden administration and other european officials, there is a sense that putin's inner circle is assuring him that he and the russian people can ride out these sanctions, and at the end of the day, taking ukraine is a vital national security goal of his and it's something that he has seen and has seen for a long time as a long-term

strategic goal. and that's why this unbelievable situation is what the world is watching unfold right now. but again, even with saying all that, the officials i'm speaking with, there is still no sense that the u.s. military will go in there and go to war with russia over ukraine. now, the military could be brought in to help in poland. there's already some there, specifically the 82nd airborne, they could be helped to get some americans and maybe even some other, you know, allied citizens out in that they will be on the polish side of the border and helping them when they come across, but there's still no indications that the u.s. military would be involved in moving people out of that country at this point, john. >> richard engel, you have entered as many war zones as i have been thrown out of bars, which is to say, a lot. so i ask you, having seen a lot of these circumstances -- >> i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. >> it's just a measure of a lot of experience on your part.

>> what do you do in all these bars to get thrown out? >> let's not go down that path. i just want to ask you whether any of this seems like courtney was talking about, about the fact that everyone is just surprised, really, sort of shocked that putin is going through with this. are you surprised? are you shocked? does it feel like war there yet? >> it does not feel like war here yet, and no, i'm not surprised. the u.s. policy thus far has been to call putin out, and no one seems surprised by what he does, because all of his moves have been anticipated, but then he's still doing the moves, so clearly, that strategy, as novel and sort of cute as it is, doesn't seem to be stopping vladimir putin. you can't stop someone who doesn't get embarrassed. you can't stop someone who is afraid of being called out or afraid of being called a liar.

he's conducting this fairly transparent approach by claiming that these areas are being attacked and that they're facing a genocide, even though there's no evidence at all, but that doesn't seem to bother him, that when people, like i'm doing right now, say there is no genocide, he still continues to insist there is and whether he's convincing his own population or a population sort of outside the -- those who follow the news, is unclear, but so far, just calling him out isn't stopping him. so, no, i'm not particularly surprised that this is -- this has gone ahead. this is something he's long wanted to do, and he sees the opportunity to do it right now. perhaps having seen the united states pull out of afghanistan, he decided, well, if the united states and nato aren't going to fight the taliban, they're certainly not going to fight him. >> richard engel, courtney kube,

and keir simmons, thank you for starting us off this hour. when we come back, more on this developing crisis in ukraine. we will speak with a congressman on the hours foreign affairs committee who met with nato secretary general earlier today. plus, over two dozen house democrats have announced their plans to retire or run for other offices. what does this mean for the future of the democratic party as it tries to hold on to its majority in the house in this case? new reporting on how the progressive candidates are hoping to seize on these openings. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. gs "deadline white house" continues ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. dry eye symptoms driving you crazy? inflammation might be to blame. time for ache and burn! over the counter eye drops typically work by lubricating your eyes and may provide temporary relief. those'll probably pass by me!

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we are back with our continuing crisis -- continuing coverage of the crisis in ukraine. president biden today announcing new sanctions against the russian separatist-backed areas of ukraine, coming just hours after the press conference from russian president vladimir putin where he recognized those two regions, setting the stage for possible military action, further military action. joining us now, retired u.s. navy admiral james stavridis, msnbc chief international security and diplomacy analyst. jim, it's great to see you. always a pleasure, and there's almost no one i'd rather be talking to right now than you. just give me your take on the day. just -- i mean, the putin speech, really important, what the white house has responded and now we're seeing some movement of potentially some new troops into ukraine. sum it up for me and then we'll go from there. >> think of it as a checklist, john. putin is relentlessly working

down the checklist and we've seen the checklist. we saw it in 2008 in georgia, we saw it 2014 with the invasion of ukraine and the annexation of crimea. the checklist includes move massive numbers of forces into commanding positions around your target. check. sow discord and disrespect of the government using social media. check. create a false flag to draw in, quote, peacekeepers. check. i mean, we could go in more detail. you get the idea. we've seen the playbook. next, you're going to see more and more russian troops crossing the border, whether they're called peacekeepers or warriors, doesn't really matter. an invasion is the imposition of armed troops on a sovereign nation without the consent of that sovereign nation. that is happening in front of

our eyes. the biden administration is handing this as well as anybody possibly could. they have marshalled the allies, collectively. they have laid out sanctions. they have showed a little taste of what is to come in sanctionville with the announcement that luhansk and danesk, these two broken toy republics are, quote, independent, according to russia. sanctions are being imposed even as we're doing this broadcast. all of that is what is necessary if we're going to forestall an even bigger shock and awe campaign that heads up to kyiv. boy, i hope we don't end up in that place, john. >> well, that's my question, jim. at this point, "the new york times" was writing today about, like, a lot depends on what vladimir putin does. does he decide to go on a full-on blitzkrieg or kind of nibble away at ukraine? your sense right now of the

likelihood that at least putin's intent is to go full blitzkrieg is what? >> i would say it is 1 in 3 that he will go the full monty, go to kyiv, find zelensky, drag him away to a cell somewhere, or worse. park russian troops effectively in at least half of the country. but boy, that's a big undertaking, even for russia and even for vladimir putin. hence, i give it a one in three. i think there's probably a two in three chance at this point that he will bring the, quote, peace keepers, unquote, into luhansk, into dunesk, grab that land bridge down from russia to crimea and park there, assess the situation, and say, now is the time for us to negotiate. from the western perspective, it is not a moment where we are

going to want to give him any ground. >> right. anne applebaum tweeted on the point you just a just raised. russian recognition of the fake donbas republics is legal aggression. time for sanctions now. shortly thereafter, the secretary of state, anthony blinen, tweeted, kremlin recognition of the so-called boens and luhansk people's republics requires a swift and firm response and we will take appropriate steps in coordination with partners so i think what tony blinken there is saying is, sanctions now. do you think that sanctions are going to matter at all to vladimir putin? i've been asking people for the last hour and a half on this show. everyone i talk to and they're all pretty smart people, they think that putin doesn't care or doesn't believe they're going to happen or both. >> i would say roughly both. and so what that means is putin personally, he's not one of these oligarchs who just wakes up in the morning and wants to get on his yacht.

putin likes it just fine at his little dotcha outside of moscow, and so personally, not going to really hit him. and as far as the country goes, putin has spent the last several years trying to fireproof his economy to the degree he can from these kind of sanctions. having said all that, over time, if we impose truly restrictive sanctions, particularly on the oil and gas sector, it will create discontent inside russia but again, he's got a very firm grip on the levers of power. look for him to push hard to consolidate his games, and oh, by the way, john, he'll be back again before this is all over. he's not going to be satisfied with this chunk of southeastern ukraine. we are watching a replay of the late 1930s and it doesn't look good. >> jim, i want to ask you one more question. earlier in the show, we played

this andrea mitchell reporting related to the potential for human rights abuses being undertaken by russia. do we have that full screen? can we get that up so i can read this to stavridis here? you probably know this reporting, jim, which basically said that there's -- that the u.n. and others are concerned that if russia decides to invade ukraine, there will be widespread human rights abuses that are reminiscent of things from world war ii and the nazis in germany, things like dissidents and others rounded up, identify ukrainians that are already on lists being taken to camps and have violence inflicted on them, potentially killed. it's a chilling, haunting letter, and i ask whether, a, you're familiar with the reporting and whether, a, you think it's plausible if an invasion does happen and b, what the west can do about it under the circumstances that we face, which is ukraine not a member of nato and the u.s. basically saying, we're not going to put troops -- we're not going to get

involved in a military way unless a nato member has its territory violated. what would be the move there? just more sanctions against those kind of human rights atrocities that people currently fear on putin's part? >> i'm very familiar with the reporting. i'm even more familiar with the history from the 1930s that this is beginning to echo. i find it not only possible but probable, unfortunately. if putin goes to that one in three chance we talked about a moment ago, full-on invasion, round up the prisoners, take them away, i think that's unfortunately all too realistic. what should we do about it? number one is, in fact, the sanctions, but number two, john, is taking a page, again, from the second world war, resistance inside ukraine. we ought to arm, equip, train,

cooperate with the ukrainian resistance and the zelensky government, i am certain, has plans to form if necessary a government in exile. much like charles de gaulle did in france. and you take that government in exile, maybe it starts in western ukraine, still inside their own country in lviv, but if that falls, i think that's unlikely, but if it does, go to warsaw, go to london, build a government in exile, conduct a resistance. again, our playbook here, france in the 1940s, afghanistan under the soviet union, we know how to do this, and that is a next step. you make it very painful for vladimir putin. i think that's probably the next move in the chess game. again, let's hope we don't have to pull that one out. >> james stavridis, i wouldn't say this is not exactly a conversation that anyone finds pleasant to have, but one from

which i know i learn a lot every time i talk to you about things like this, and hopefully our audience does too. please keep coming back on the air to help us figure out this stuff as it unfolds. we'll be right back after this break to talk about some more elements of this ukraine crisis. elements of this ukraine crisis. looking to get back in your type 2 diabetes zone? once-weekly ozempic® can help. ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ ♪ oh, oh, oh ♪ ozempic® is proven to lower a1c. most people who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. and you may lose weight. adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. in adults also with known heart disease, ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. ozempic® helped me get back in my type 2 diabetes zone.

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welcome back, and let's bring in congressman gerry connolly of virginia, a member of the house foreign affairs committee, he is currently in

brussels after meeting today with the nato secretary general. congressman, great to have you here and thank you for your patience as we were talking. >> great to be with you, john. >> kept jabbering before with jim stavridis. you're over there in brussels at the heart of europe. tell us about your meeting with the nato secretary general and how things feel right now on the ground today in light of what happened in moscow tonight and what seems to be happening on the ground in ukraine. >> so, i had extensive meetings today. i'm president of the nato parliamentary assembly which is like the legislative arm of nato, and today was our annual north atlantic council meeting with the ambassadors to nato and our parliamentarians. we met with the secretary general of nato. we met with the u.s. ambassador to nato. among other officials. and i would say, clearly, it was a very somber environment. i think people are very clear-eyed at this point about what is happening and what is likely to happen.

and people are, you know, girding themselves for a strenuous and vigorous reaction, and they understand that's going to involve sacrifice on many people's parts, especially here in europe, but that is the only way to counter the brutal actions of a bully who is encroaching on the sovereign territory of a european nation. >> you know, the white house came out today and announced this new round of sanctions. are you, well, tell me about your degree of optimism that sanctions, these sanctions and other sanctions, will be enough to deter vladimir putin from a full-scale invasion of ukraine? >> i believe -- well, certainly, the sanctions announced with respect to the affected areas of occupation by russian troops -- by the way, we should never call them peacekeepers.

there are no peacekeepers in donetsk and luhansk. those are units of the russian military. we shouldn't play games, this media or any other media, with respect to what's happening. we should call it what it is, and they already are illegally occupying sovereign territory, and by the pretext that occurred today, with putin signing, you know, a recognition of the so-called independence of russian-occupied territory, that allows him to then have the pretext of expanding to the borders of that territory. right now, he occupies about a third of it. this would justify the next two-thirds and there's no guarantee he'd stop there. so that's what's going on, and i think that ought to trigger massive sanction punitive action. the sanctions the united states and its allies are contemplating would be massive. they would have enormous consequences on the russian economy. and in virtually every sector.

manufacturing and production, trade and investment, financial and credit areas and of course the energy sector. and as i said, that means real sacrifices on the part of many of our allies, but everybody understands what the stakes are, and i do think putin has contributed to clearing up any mistification people may have about what his intentions are and what, in fact, he is undertaking. >> congressman, you just laid out the breadth and the necessity, breadth, and scale of the sanctions, which i'm glad to hear you do. and it clearly seems like what's going to be what the u.s. policy and what the policy of the west is going to be. didn't quite get to my, though, and the reason i ask the question is i've asked now for the last hour and 42 minutes, mike mcfaul, people who have been in the room with vladimir putin on various occasions, people who are experts on russia, people who have lived in moscow, people who have -- the national security advisor, experts on the level of jim stavridis, i asked them all, do

you think that sanctions, any of the sanctions currently contemplated will have any effect on vladimir putin's pans plans and not a single person says they will. i'm curious whether you do, whether you're more optimistic about the impact than the others today who have been very pessimistic about their likely impact. >> so, john, it depends on the time frame we're talking about. remember that nato and our allies won the cold war by being persistent. by tenacity. by not being deterred by setbacks. and over a 50-year period, it's the west and its allies that prevailed, and it was the soviet union that crumbled, an event that putin has characterized as one of the great tragedies of the 20th century, which comes as news to many of the satellite nations that suffered under soviet occupation. so, i believe sanctions, if sustained, will, in fact, have

huge and dire consequences on the ability of russia to function in the modern economy. when you can't finance something, when you can't have access to credit, when you can't sell your goods and products, you're going to hurt, and so will the people of your nation. and i believe that's what we have to be prepared to do. >> congressman, one quick final question, which is, you're sitting over there in brussels and you've been hanging out with the nato crowd. it's clear that putin has some doubt about whether nato is as unified as president biden has been saying and others in the administration have been saying for the last couple weeks. is your sense that nato is fully together on this? or on questions like energy that there are some cracks, like places like germany that don't necessarily -- have not been as vocal about the need for really robust sanctions. do you think there's unity of purpose and cause here among the nato allies? >> i think there's been a lot of

solidarity going into today's events, but i think today's events really clarify everybody's thinking, and i think they really enhance the resolve, collective resolve, of nato and our allies. we cannot let this stand. we can't allow some kind of repeat of behavior from the 1930s, and i would just add one more thing. i think there's a big difference between today and what happened in the 1930s. the methodology he's employing may be similar to the 1930s, but it's a whole different terrain. he has to face nato boundaries, and under article v, you know, it's one for all and all for one. he understands that he could trigger an enormous conflagration that would have profound consequences on russia and the russian people, and he's not prepared to go there. so, we're operating from a certain position of strength,

while also recognizing we're dealing with, you know, a personality that is, you know, enveloped in grievance and false history, you know, a fantastical russian view of its status in the world and its claims on the sovereign territory. >> all right, congressman gerry connolly, thank you for spending time with us, especially since it's pretty late there in brussels. get some sleep. you're going to need it tomorrow. coming up, we're going to talk about domestic politics, a whopping 30 congressional democrats have announced that they are retiring or running for some other office this year. what this wave of departures means for the party when we come back. of departures means for the party when we come back

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30, count them, 30 house democrats so far not seeking re-election in november. setting the scene for a shellacking in the midterms. and with younger, upstart progressives who won't have to face incumbents in safe blue districts. tomorrow, jasmine crockett, the most liberal member of the statehouse of representatives in the lone star state has been endorsed by johnson. johnson saying i think it's time

for me to retire, and i think you should be the one to replace me. she's been progressive, just the 86-year-old version of a progressive. joining us now, cornell belcher, president of brilliant corners research. and republican strategist, mike murphy. cornell, starting with you, right now, do you take it for granted that the 30 retirements basically spell -- not certain doom, but make it very difficult for democrats to hold on to control of the house of representatives in november? >> yeah. but it's part of a pattern, you've seen this happen in off-years, both for democrats as well as republicans. it's not surprising that you have a large number of retirements. you saw a large number of republican retirements in the last off-year. but let's be clear, it's harder to defend an open seat than

defend an incumbent seat. part of the good news for democrats, many of these seats, in fact i think most of these seats are quite frankly not seats that are safely or leaning democrat. that's of course because of the power of incumbency. but to your point about progressives, i would caution you one little bit about progressives. because we have not seen on the left the sort of coming together around an organization or an individual that sort of unifies the left, the way i think you've seen trump do on the right. and for every aoc out there, there's a lot of moderate democrats who have come through in the primary and won. and the most recent one i'm thinking is in ohio 11. >> as you look at the field, you think about the playing field, i mean. and you look at where the

candidate recruitment is happening in the party, the new cadre that is coming up, there's no doubt the new democratic caucus in general is more progressive and dominated by progressive voices. do you see in the candidates who will be running for these open seats, or candidates running in other competitive districts, is the current crop of 2022 non-incumbent candidates, people whose names we don't know, is it more progressive than we've seen before, or does it look like the democrats of 2018, where there was a lot of time put into recruiting candidates who were right for the districts? >> i think a lot of candidates would argue they were right for the district. you saw a lot of women and candidates of color break through. in virginia, they had a lot of legislative candidates in 2018 that were not your conventional

candidates at all. one of the things that is happening on the left, what is this far left progressive? looking at what biden and the moderate democrats, they've co-opted a lot of the conversation. we're on the cusp of developing and putting chargers all over the country for cars. so a lot of the issues that quite frankly have been to the far left, i think moderates have co-opted a lot of these issues. >> mike, what do you say about that? surveying the playing field, seeing where the action is in the democratic party right now, how candidate recruitment is going, what do you see in terms of the ideological sort that is going on in the rising house

class? >> i think the hard liberal side of the democratic party has a lot of power in the inside game to set the agenda. i mean, i think president biden's domestic policy is a couple of steps to the left of where his image was when he ran as a democrat, resisting some of the lefty stuff from bernie or warren or some of the others. in the house, there's been a strong leftward pull. but about the retirements, they are a poll of their own. because the worst thing to be in the house is in the minority. because you have no power. in the senate, the minority, you can still screw around, you have power in influence. in the house, without the majority, you don't have a lot of power. so they're thinking, i'm in the majority, i like it, i may have a subcommittee, i may have some

clout. i'm going to go into the wilderness, it's time to retire. they can be wrong. but when you see a surge of retirements, that's an indicator of nervousness about the midterms. when you look at biden's numbers and historically a protest vote against a midterm president, it will open up seats, and i agree with cornell, a lot of times on paper, the most liberal candidate looks strong. but in the actual primaries, in ohio, that's a great examination. it kind of folds. we saw the same thing in the new york mayor's race, a great test of democratic base attitudes. a huge collection of democratic primary voters there. so it's uncertain if this progressive surge will continue in a lot of these open seats. i think that is up for debate.

they've underperformed so far. even democratic rank and file voters don't always want what they're selling. >> last thing i'll say, because ukraine ate most of the hour, but you have richie torres in the bronx. no one's idea of anything but a progressive, now saying defund the police is dead in new york city. now a lot of the labeling that goes on is talking points. pay attention to what the candidates are saying and are actually for. thank you. we'll be back after a quick break. l be back after a quick break.

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that does it for us on this monday. thanks for being with us. i'll see you again tomorrow. right now, "the beat" with ali velshi, in for ari melber, starts right now. >> that was remarkable, thanks for that,