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us as we take a moment to rest and reflect a bit. we here at "deadline white house" are thinking about the families in ukraine, and what this holiday season must feel like for them. christmas eve marked ten months since the start of a russian war that has not let up even though it's now in the thick of winter. when russia unleashed the air strike on december 24th, it was the largest attack on that state since world war ii and then putin's forces two weeks later laid siege to

maripol. devastating, and yet the twice impeached disgraced ex-president continues to claim with no evidence whatsoever, if he were the president ukraine would be just fine. on the day russia invaded ukraine, russia released this gem. if i was in office this deadly situation in ukraine had never have happened. to think if only trump were our president there would be peace in ukraine it's laughable thanks to an exhaustive and riveting new piece in the "new york times," we have reason to believe trump was saying that quiet part out loud. part of an investigation that unearthed a missing puzzle

piece. in 2016, a shadowy figure who u.s. intelligence believes is a russian spy approached paul manafort with a you scratch my back i'll scratch yours proposal vladimir putin's invading russian army pushed into ukraine. and it called for the creation of an autonomous republic in ukraine's east the scheme cut against decades of american policy promoting a free and united ukraine, but trump is already suggesting he would upend the diplomatic status quo if elected. and what the plan offered on paper is what putin is trying to

seize. and mariupol is shorthand for the horrors of the war, a occupied city in ruins after countless citizens buried in mass graves. a friend of the show who led the prosecution's special counsel of manafort would later call it the ah-ha moment when he realized that spy was the quo putin wanted for the quid of helping trump's campaign russia clearly revealed to manafort and by extension to the campaign, what it wanted from the u.s., a win skpk and nod of approval from the president of the united states. let that sink in control of the city of mariupol was the quo that vladimir putin wanted for the quid of helping trump's campaign in 2016 that's where we begin the hour

joining us, writer at large for the "new york times," and the man behind the exceptional piece of reporting, washington times pulitzer prize winning russia coverage in 2017 and 2018. the piece is an opus i have read it three times now take me through how it starts. it's the scene that is like out of a spy thriller. >> thanks for having me. you know, when you go back and you look at the records that were unearthed in the special counsel investigation, and the senate investigation, and there are investigations we spent so much time hearing about through the lens of the politics, and there's an incredible scene that we knew about at the time but didn't gather the significance of it where basically the night

that hillary clinton is accepting the democratic nomination, paul manafort, president trump's then candidate trump's campaign manager is receiving a message from this spy, and he said i need to talk to you and writing this in moscow and i have to come and talk to you in person and they arrange the meeting at the fa famous cigar bar that is owned by jared's family, and they basically talked about granting what manafort himself confirmed to mr. weissman, backdoor control over the most important industrial region of ukraine >> jim, what is established through the investigation is a united mission i think a lot of us in this

country got wrapped around connecting the dot to have a conspiracy conspiracy, and there was a shared collusion, and call it whatever you want the quid pro quo was help in 2016 for help in seizing mariupol, is that right? >> the interesting thing that mr. weissman later reveals that the senate intelligence committee report that kind of went back through the record that existed, not speculation, and not a criminal case but the e-mails that were unearthed and the primary documents and what weissman found was all along manafort and others were avoiding talking about the meeting at the cigar bar i just mentioned or the idea of the mariupol plan, and it was concealed from them, they felt

when weissman gets new e-mails and information and sees things have been left out what he has learned so far from mr. manafort, who was speaking with prosecutors as they talked about a possible cooperation deal, and he said, what are they hide stphg well, here's what they are hiding well, what they are talking about is the east of ukraine, and once you realize how important the east of ukraine is to putin, and that there was a russian meddling operation to affect social media and disrupt american politics, it all came together for mr. weissman. >> manafort and trump have not fallen out, and trump is still talking about putin being a genius he describes the plan to annex territory as brilliant and said he would deploy the same tactics along the border of this country. do you believe that when trump says there wouldn't have been a

war, it would have been because he would have considered trying to negotiate the mariupol plan >> well, i don't know what was in his head. i do know there was an argument that one could make that had this plan gone forward, and by the way, before it got a chance to, the russian investigation really kicked in and manafort was in legal trouble it really got stopped in its tracks however, had that plan gone forward, arguably putin would have gotten what he wanted and perhaps there would not have been a war and perhaps the flip side would be no ukraine as we understand it. what any ukrainian will tell you right now is that wouldn't have happened anyway, because what we have seen is the ukrainian people would never have accepted that plan, right, but putin's planning was never based on what the ukrainian people would do or wouldn't do, as we now know. yes, on paper, this would have given putin what he wanted and

would have rendered ukraine as a broken democracy >> you know, "the times" trump and russia coverage would win a pulitzer prize, and in the end the circuit that jim closes was not clear at the time. what do you make of the new information plugged into -- the stories that the times had was stop the presses, and they would hand them to me and we would talk about them for an hour they were so jaw-dropping, and the pieces didn't all fall in place as quickly as the revelation sort ofcaused all of us to sto everything we were doing and focus on the new questions they raised >> i think one of the reasons why jim's report something so amazing is it's so effectively ties together these major events

that, you know, may, as the story unspooled in real time did not seem as connected as they do now. if you take the events of the campaign election interference in 2016, russia sabotaged the election, and the second event being the first impeachment of donald trump which was all about ukraine, and recall that the person who has just been named "time" magazine person of the year, zelenskyy, was at the time at the other end of the call that trump placed that was a shakedown call, and zelenskyy, he is not the person he was now, and then the third one was the invasion of the south. as jim puts in his piece, ukraine is the baseline running through this but it shows this was the prize -- or at least a prize that putin wanted. i think that's what is so

important because it does show that all of this does have a piece. >> we found going back seven years, trump was disparaging ukraine. russia hated ukraine and wanted to seize parts of it, and trump wanted to withhold military aid. what were the yellow flashing pieces of the story for you as you look at "the times" russia coverage during the trump presidency >> well, it paints the picture of not that donald trump was groomed over the years by vladimir putin -- >> or an asset -- >> right if jeb bush had run against hillary clinton in 2016, and if

trump was not the nominee, you probably would have seen russian interference that was 50/50, and busch was a republican and hillary was the same way, and so you would have -- he would have sabotaged both sides i think as trump starts winning primaries, it becomes clear he's the nominee, and he also starts surrounding himself by people who have been in putin's orbit in different ways. mike flynn and paul manafort and others -- >> papadopoulos -- and the other guy. >> carter page many of these guys have been forgotten. on top of that, some of the things he starts saying publicly as jim points out in his piece, first, he starts to disparaging

nato if you are putin, in a way it's ma mannah from heaven i think that was an unanswered question that i think, again, is more crystalized tpnow given wht we see what putin's goals were >> do you think the why is answered do you understand the trump why? why putin? >> i think that is still, you know, if jim has written a second draft of history, it's going to be moreover time whether it's a -- some instinct to zag where others zig in the foreign policies establishment and admiration for

authoritarianism, and he had been to russia before and sought properties there, so you know, i think it's a combination, but i think your question is still outstanding. >> do you feel like the question -- i mean, again, the reporting really goes the further in answering why trump for putin, but do you feel like you understand why putin for trump? >> why putin for trump yes. in that, trump was signaling to putin, intentionally or not, right, that he was going to be the best thing that putin could ever hope for in an american president, which was to end the traditional american role in the world. if there was one thing that putin wants is to rebuild the empire starting with ukraine, and we know that if there was one country above all others standing in the way of that, it was the united states of america. putin's own administration was very open they viewed the

classic u.s. regime, certainly the obama administration and the bush administration and hillary clinton as being the most important sponsors for ukraine having that sponsorship out of the way, which -- which donald trump was indicating as president he would at least consider that, that's earth shattering in putin's world. that's a major, major, potential win. interesting on the trump side, and what trump would say if he were sitting right here -- well, he would probably say a lot of things, but one thing he would say at the end of the day he did one thing the obama administration would not and that's he would grant the ukrainians defensive weapons while this other stuff is going on, and there's a point in trump's presidency where he is warm and cozy with putin and

wants to be putin's poodle, so ironically the politics of the u.s. would push trump to act more in hawkish fashion, but in a begrudging way where at the same time he blames ukraine because he thinks they were involved in the hacking themselves and there was a conspiracy theory that ukraine hacks the u.s. and set up russia, and not russia, and trump flirted with that idea publicly it was just this crazy clouded picture, but no matter what, putin still would have always rather had a donald trump than any democrat or any traditional republican >> i think that endures, right, as we head into 2024, and i don't think any man's view about the other have changed a bit and since we are talking about trump at the table, we will listen to what trump had to say. why that russia, are you listening moment has a second

look tonight and then the perfect phone call with zelenskyy, and what is happening on the ground in ukraine today. ukraine today. all those stories and more after the break. don't go anywhere. will you make something better? ♪ will you create something entirely new? ♪

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russia, if you are listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press let's see if that happens. >> anybody who was covering the trump campaign will always remember they were at the moment that happened and as we all know

russia was listening shocker. russa listening, though, even if that's the only thing those of us that covered that, that press conference, and it overshadowed everything else. in that same press conference, donald trump said that if he were elected president he would consider lifting sanctions against russia, and the next day, july 28th, donald trump's then campaign manager gets an urgent message from somebody we have been talking about that is said is a russian spy, and that agent proposes the steal jim has written about, to hand mariupol over why mariupol you can see on the map, where it

is and how it forms a potential bridge, between coded messages about crimea and secret meetings with russian spies where they ask nicely for trump to give them the city of mariupol, and it's clear trump for the white house and putin wanting ukraine are inner connected. we all followed that because the e-mails intersected with comey's investigation of hillary, and the commitment to get crimea turns out to be the enduring geopolitical comment >> if you line up the timeline as you did, you have the trump statement about crimea and the meeting in the cigar bar two days later again, these are the sort of signals that go out that trump sends that putin and the kremlin

are reading as very clearly signs that we can do business with this business, right? again, the idea that there was this sort of pristine collusion and it was more messy and different contacts at different times, whether it was the manafort connection or the trump tower meeting with donald trump, jr. or papadopoulos, and this is how it happened. back to that statement, again, putin is reading these signals and sending his people out >> do you think he is reading them trump did not know puerto rico is part of america who told him to say i would give back crimea? >> he had a group of advisers, and i don't know who the exact person is, but he was surrounding himself with --

>> like mike flynn -- >> this was their view flynn had a cozy relationship with the russians from an ideological view, and these were people in the fringes of the foreign affairs establishment. these were some of the people, i believe, whispering in his ear where trump made these statements that he was inclined to do so anyway, but they were forming some of the beliefs. >> he said on the 27th of july, i would consider giving back crimea, and then on the 28th they throw in the deal of give us mariupol, too >> well, what interested me when i was looking at all this was the urgency with which

konstantin made, and to come here, it's not an easy thing and he wants to meet quickly, right? the meeting is put right on the books as paul manafort is running a presidential campaign, a general election that really is just getting under way. it's pretty extraordinary that they would take this time to meet now, manafort says, which andrew weissman, you know, declared perjury, and manafort told me he dismissed this right away. there was one key element, because the person who this mariupol plan envisioned bringing to power for this kind of autonomous eastern region they were talking about, and it was victor yanocovic and he was brought in by a very

prominent russian oligarch who is on record saying i pursue my own interests, but it's good for me when they align with the kremlin's own interest so what he is talking about do something reinstalling a former manafort climate, and prosecutors did not believe him. but there are these incredibly intriguing pieces and sure enough at the same time, what else was going on according to prosecutors and much of it based on extensive research they did was there was a discussion at that cigar bar as well about polling, what was the trump's campaign view of the race. at that point the trump campaign, manafort was saying things others didn't, a path for trump to win was going to be

through the working-class blue collar voters in states that were recently in obama's column, pennsylvania he saw this happening in wisconsin and michigan these two conversations are happening at the same session. >> jim, let me ask you about the manafort prosecution there's a point, and if i don't remember this accurately correct me, but manafort cooperates and then uncooperates. is there anything else you learned that syncs up the timeline where the cooperation ends and the unflipping on trump begins did they not probe -- it's clear they did not get to the product where they did not have the exchange of the data of the mariupol claim as part of the manafort prosecution, right? >> the first trial manafort goes through, a lot of this was not known in weissman's book

even people like weissman are putting this together much later as in his case as he is writing his book as he writes in his book, it's between manafort's first trial, and there was tax trials for his work in ukraine, and there was going to be a second trial and between the two trials manafort strikes a deal that he is going to cooperate manafort tells me that his primary goal here is he is worried about the venue, and he doesn't think he can be and is trying to protect family assets forhis family and strikes the deal weissman is really the person. the prosecutors blow up the deal when they learn among other things manafort was not being honest about the mariupol plan and that's one of the reasons they scrap the deal. manafort has been open that he was hoping for a trump pardon,

and regardless that is this sort of the picture that comes together later and it's really, again, i found this fascinating that the thing that helps blow up his deal is not sharing the details of his interactions and discussions about this plan. >> this is, again, an interesting and adjacent parallel, and i am not suggesting a conspiracy, but flynn flips and then unflips he could say whatever he wanted to about a new posture of what a new president would take and the sanctions, and he flips faster than anybody in doj history and then unflips and before we leare details of the interactions with

what was promised and what was traded, if you will, he unflips. what do we still not know about these guys and putin's interactions with them and promises and requests of the trump administration >> a lot of those sort of central questions you are asking, we still don't have a completely clear picture on, right? going back to a second to the polling data, which was in some peoples' view it was a smoking gun, right, that clearly showed that, you know, you have campaign manager giving inside information to, you know, suspected russian asset who is bringing it back to putin, right? and then others including manafort, gates, his former deputy, it was nothing, it was just top line polling that anybody that watches msnbc would know, right, about the path, but maybe it's somewhere in the middle again, may not be satisfying for everybody but it's clearly important, right

as jim points out you have the campaign manager telling -- >> he hustles to the u.s. fast >> right and my guess is there was not so much focus in the media about the importance of pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, right, the ones that ended up flipping for trump, right >> to hear that from the inside would be quite valuable for a russian government that is dead set on sabotaging hillary clinton -- >> to get crimea >> right and all of that is important, and low and behold, where do we see the focal point of the sabotage, and i am not trying to build a conspiracy, but if you line these things up it does show the significance of this

piece of the puzzle that jim has highlighted. >> i think the sort of enduring story is that there are as many unanswered questions about trump and his affinity for putin and putin and what he wanted and got from trump as there have been answers from the times' extraordinary coverage jim, thank you for writing the piece and taking time to talk about it and mark, thank you for being here and taking us through time about it thank you. so-called perfect phone call between donald trump and ukrainian president, zelenskyy we will talk to two people on the call we will be right back with that. hey! that's mine. i'll buy you a pony. advanced hydration isn't just for kids. pedialyte helps you hydrate during recovery.

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ukraine is in a war with russia, and the security assistance we provide ukraine is significant, and absent that security assistance and maybe more importantly the signal of support for ukrainian sovereignty and territory intea integrity, that would likely encourage russia to further pursue aggression and further undermining ukrainian sovereignty and u.s. security. >> in other words, ukraine is heavily dependent on united states support both diplomatically, financially, and also militarily? >> correct >> ukraine is in a war with

russia that was from trump's first impeachment in 2019 and that was three years ago explaining what is painful to all of us now, ten months into russia's war with ukraine. former director for european affairs for the national security council, and also our good friend, the former adviser to president zelenskyy, and former u.s. ambassador to russia i want to come through with this new lens of what has been reported and what we understand to be weissman's ah-ha moment, the circle being complete, the mariupol election interference in 2016. >> to me it's clear that there's

a continuity not just in president trump's efforts to steal an election to retain power, but there's a long-term continuity in russia's efforts, including through the president of the united states, donald trump, that's the part that is interesting to me, the back store k story, the last bit of the story ends with the quid pro quo and the trump phone call, and the story on the project to secure crimea and a land bridge, this mariupol plan, from russia proper to crimea that was a long-term enterprise and they saw a partnership in a lot of ways with the trump administration to get there. servicing the president's desires to keep power at any cost >> igor, you were not just on the call but you briefed

president zelenskyy for the call, is that right? and you arranged the call, right, between trump and president zelenskyy? igor, what was your advice to them about trump's bizarre fetish for putin and irrational distrust of ukraine? >> first of all, i do have to stress that we were not publicly saying it, but by that time we realized what was going on, and there were interactions that gave us enough to understand we were in for a hell of a ride and consider missing pieces of the puzzle that might not be publicly available just yet. first of all, president trump and the view of crimea, and i was there in the room when he met zelenskyy in new york, and one of the things trump said to us when we asked about crimea is wasn't crimea historically a

russian island, and so that was -- that was his view on it he was very dismissive of questions like really trying to enforce territorial integrity of the ukraine, and he was interested in the domestic politics and it was difficult for us to deal with it if you examine the transcript of the so-called perfect phone call president zelenskyy mentions javelins and trump completely ignores it and disregards it, and goes let's focus on preside president biden and everything else we played dumb, and we realized if we couldn't do anything else at least we wanted president trump and giuliani and a bunch of designated russian agents -- future russian agents to

surround giuliani to layout the path so in the future we could kind of rebuild the timeline of what was going on. >> igor, what did you believe to be the reason for trump's indifference for a american ally and his affinity for an american adversary? >> well, president trump is a very narcissistic person and ukraine was a thorn in his side, and so we were dependent on u.s. assistance and diplomacy, as it was said before, and the only upside he saw with us was this stupid rubber stamping of the

conspiracy theories for him to win the second term, and otherwise i think he would have completely disregarded us. >> and given it to putin >> that's true and i have to sneak in a quick break. nobody will go anywhere. also when we come back, the anatomy of how trump thinks he could have waved a wand and stopped the suffering in ukraine. that's next. one out of two women over 50 will suffer a fracture from osteoporosis. you should know you can build new bone with evenity® for postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk for fracture. ask your doctor if you can do more than just slowing down bone loss with evenity®. want stronger bones? then build new bone; evenity® can help in just 12 months. evenity® is proven to reduce spine fracture risk by 73%. evenity® can increase risk of heart attack, stroke, or death from a cardiovascular problem.

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really think isn't it a shame, all those people are dead all because of a rigged election, because if our election was not rigged you would have had nobody dead >> when you said to putin, don't invade ukraine, what was his response >> i told him what our response was going to be and his response was really, and i said, really >> what did you say your response would be. >> not remotely possible, right? that's another point of trump's tragedy of the war in ukraine. back with us, colonel alexander vindman, former director for european affairs for the national security council, igor novikov, former adviser to ukraine's president zelenskyy. and former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul now an msnbc international affairs analyst. ambassador mcfaul, on all of it your reaction. >> where to begin, nicolle

>> take your time. >> well, you know, i think it's important for everybody to understand that yes, mr. trump has a giant ego and when people say nice things about them he likes them and mutin, somebody i used to negotiate with and deal with and have interacted with and written about for 30 years, he's really smart about these things he does his homework before meetings to make those kind of overtures. and he played mr. trump very effectively. but second, below that there's also an ideological affinity between these two leaders. their illiberal nationalist populists. they don't believe in the rule of law they don't believe in constitutions. they worry about the decadent liberal western movements. and putin for a decade has been cultivating relationships with like-minded ideologues in hungary, in italy, in france, and in the united states of

america. so that's the second piece that i think people need to understand and then third, with respect to what might have happened, you know, things would have been very different had president trump been re-elected because putin would have had a collaborator, a willing collaborator to say oh, you want crimea yeah, of course. he would have given it away. so the relationship -- maybe there wouldn't have been war, by the way. president trump might have been right about that because the united states of america might have given putin everything he wanted vis-a-vis ukraine. >> igor, you're shaking your head >> well, first of all, let me stress one point president trump was president for four years and there was war in ukraine during those four years. furthermore, president trump tried to take away and freeze our military assistance during an active combat so his claim that there wouldn't be war is ridiculous there might not have been, you know, a major invasion

but still the russian filtration tactics, i.e. murders and torture of, you know, freedom-minded ukrainians would still have happened. just under the cover >> vufjust to be clear igor is exactly right. i misspoke -- >> go ahead, ambassador mcfaul and then alex. >> igor's exactly right. there was war started in 2014. it's been ongoing. just the nature and kind of war could have been different because i fear that had president trump been re-elected we would not have been supporting the ukrainians in the way we are right now in fact, i don't fear it i think we know from what the two other gentlemen on this conversation know firsthand, president trump did not care about providing military assistance that was simply an instrument for him for his own domestic political purposes >> yeah, and alex, everyone who ended up serving as a national security adviser to trump has come out, in some way revealed they laid their body on the

railroad tracks to keep him from pulling out of nato. so not only was trump out in the open about abandoning ukraine, he would have abandoned nato if he had his way >> based on that, i'm quite confident there would eventually have been a large-scale war of the same kind except it would be a much more bloody war, much greater humanitarian catastrophe for ukraine because it may not have occurred in the first year as it did under the biden administration certainly putin would have showed some additional patience and waited until trump wrapped nato, withdrew from nato and made sure that the perception about a fractured alliance structure within nato and the u.s., that he believed would be there, that he could -- that he thought he could exploit in the early parts of the war, he wouldn't have to contend with that at all. that would have been a reality but the one thing that wouldn't have changed is that the ukrainian people would have resisted the ukrainian people would have fought for their liberties so there would be a larger war except it would be a more

lopsided war not necessarily one that russia would win. it just would be a bloody war because it would be a war that wouldn't entail the provision of javelins and stinger air defense systems and all this kind of unity around providing support to ukraine so the ukrainians would still be there, still be fighting but the russians may be making more headway, eventually losing anyway because of the will of the ukrainian people to defend themselves but it's amazing that this is not a surprise to quite a few people certainly the sound bite you played, i alluded to the fact that there would be a danger for significant escalation based on this machination to withhold aid, it became much, much worse because ukraine became politicized and radioactive to both the trump and biden administration there was not a lot of opportunity to engage with ukraine below the attention level of trump when -- imagine a world that he doesn't care about it and you could have a good

policy around ukraine. there was no opportunity to do that so for a lot of different reasons we find ourselves in this situation where this was a foreseeable crisis and it wasn't just strup but it was frankly large swaths of the republican party that would normally be democracy defenders, siding with authoritarian regime in this way that the trump regime, trump kind of enterprise has been drawing the republican party away from democracy toward something much more undemocratic >> it is really one of the most significant changes in u.s. politics in my lifetime. you are three of the most beloved guests to our viewers. and for having this conversation with us and with me today, thank you so much. alexander vindman, igor novikov, and michael mcfaul thank you. a quick break for us we'll be right back. emerge tremfyant®. with tremfya®, most people saw 90% clearer skin at 16 weeks. the majority of people saw 90% clearer skin even at 5 years. serious allergic reactions may occur.

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during this holiday season please do take a moment to think about the people of ukraine, and thank you for letting us into your homes we're so grateful. for all of us here at "deadline: white house" and msnbc we wish you a peaceful holiday and a happy new year ♪ it's the 12th annual revvie awards from rockefeller center, here's your host, al sharpton >> good evening. and welcome to