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good morning. it is sunday, november 17th, 64 days until donald trump's second inauguration. as he begins to make good on his promise to stack the government with loyalists, some picks have proven so dangerously up qualified that the countdown to inauguration day is becoming a deadline of sorts for trump himself. with nominees so controversial that even fellow republicans are balking, trump has turned to a pressure campaign. now, ordinarily nominees for the cabinet and many other senior positions in the government would be vetted and confirmed by the u.s. senate. but the president-elect is already putting republican lawmakers flu a loyalty stress test, demanding the new republican-led senate, the legislative branch of government, give up one of the few and most important checks that it has on his presidency, and the executive branch of government.

members of congress from both sides of the aisle have begun voicing concerns about some of trump's cabinet choices, like robert kennedy, or tulsi gabbard. nbc news is already reporting that the majority of republican senators are saying they don't see a path forward for matt gaetz. the pushback suggests that trump might not be able to easily push through his entire cabinet of dangerously unqualified picks the way he wants. normally, the senate has the responsibility to confirm these appointments, a power that is written into the constitution. the presidential nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consoles, judges of the supreme court, and all other officers of the united states, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided

for, and which shall be established by law. this is one of congress' most important oversight powers, designed as a safeguard to prevent up qualified and corrupt individuals from taking over top government positions. but before trump can even be inaugurated and formally nominate his picks, he's asking the senate to abdicate that responsibility to install all the people he wants without any trouble. and that's where recess appointments come in. while the constitution gives the senate the power of advice and consent on nominations, it also allows for the president to "fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the senate by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session." the end of the next ssion, the way, is january of 2026. recess appointments would essentially allow trump to put in anybody he wants, bypassing

the normal vetting or confirmation process. if he using assess appointments, no committee, not the senate itself, would have to approve a nominee. it can even be a nominee that the senate previously rejected, and they could stay in office until the next session of office, staying in their position for up to two years, as i said, in this case until the end of 2026. i'm sorry, 227 is the beginning of the next congress. our understanding of the recess appointments clause has evolved over the years. when the founding fathers drafted the constitution, when people still traveled around by horse and carriage, it wasn't practical for congress to conseen as it does now. back then, they recessed for weeks or months, which made the clause arguably more necessary during the nation's early years than it is today. but until recently, presidents of both parties have taken political advantage of recess appointments in order to fill va

can sis. bill clinton made 139 recess appointments. george w. bush made 171, and barack obama made 32. for the most part, it stopped there. after the supreme court ruled that obama overstepped his bounds by making a recess appointment when the senate only had been out three days, saying they must be out for at least ten days before the president can make appointments. since then, congress has effectively blocked the procedure by holding pro-forma sessions every few days. all that requires is for one member to gavel the senate into session. it means that congress has not been on a recess for long enough for trump for his first term or joe biden to make any recess appointments. trump wants to change that when he returns to the white house, and looking at his list of cabinet picks, it's easy to understand why.

and yet some republican senators, include john thune, have signalled that they are open to that possibility. trump has already poised to have fewer checks on s power this time around. our democracy relies on the system of checks and balances to ensure that the country is safe and secure and no one branch has too much power. this is the senate's responsibility, and they owe it to the american people to do their job. joining me now is someone who knows the intricacies of the government very well. melody barnes previously served as the assistant of the president and director of white house domestic policy in the obama administration and served as the late senator ted kennedy's chief council and is now the executive director of the institute of democracy at the university of virginia law school. professor barnes, thank you for being with us. >> great to be with you.

thanks for having me this morning. and thank you for your civics lesson for all of your viewers this morning. >> we're all learning a lot of this together. when the president starts to appoint people, i'm trying to get away from the word loyalists, but when a president appoints people who do not have the back ground and the experience and qualifications to lead agencies or departments they have been tapped for, that feels exactly what the founding fathers were thinking about when they gave the senate the power to advise and consent. talk to me about this very active shift away from it. other presidents have done this, but it's been for other reasons that the senate has been difficult or not able to cooperate with them. that's not the case here. donald trump has a senate, why not have the hearings? >> well, you're asking some very important questions. as you point out, the check that is placed on the executive, placed on the president, is the senate's advice and concept authority and responsibility in the constitution. and working in the senate for

many years, i heard over and over and of from senators, we are not a rubber stamp. and even when senators of the same party will often say i believe that this president has the right to have his picks, they also will say we have a responsibility to play, and not even just the confirmation hearing, and in the matter of voting, but on the way through that process, there's a back and forth between the white house and the senate in judging and evaluating a nominee. and it ensures and it has ensured over the time of our nation that some nominees don't get through because the senate either quietly to the white house and a nominee withdraws or, from time to time in a vote, says, in fact, this dog won't hunt. this nominee cannot go forward. >> so let's talk about that. the senate -- republicans will control the senate. they could say this is donald trump's administration, he gets

a chance to make these choices, and we will support all of them. it would feel like it's more responsible and more accountable to the american people to hold the hearings, have the questions asked that are necessary of gaetz, of gabbard, of pete hegseth and rfk, jr., so they can put it out to the american people. what do you gain, other than the erosion of more public trust, by skipping the hearings? >> right. i mean, you're raising a question question. donald trump walks into office having won the popular vote in the election, having a 53-47 senate, 53 republican senators who are with him, and i can tell you, republican senators who are very happy that they are now in power. so, he walks in with a strong tailwind. the fact that he has started out at the beginning of the process and said, i want to go to recess

appointments indicates that not only that he wants to move quickly, but also that he wants to test the relationship that he has with the senate, and the institutional lines that exist between the executive and the legislative branches. it is a -- it is a challenge that goes back to the very heart of what the framers were thinking at the time of the constitution. they were concerned about the kind of concentration of power. they were concerned because the biggest fear that they had was one of tyranny, and the senate in particular was supposed to be a check on that. not even popularly elected at that point in time, but a slower moving, in many ways designed to be a more thoughtful body, not one animated by the passions that the house was, that was going to look at a range of things, including the nominations of the president. >> one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you, because you had experience in the white house and in the senate, and with respect to recess appointments,

one thing that remains uncertain and untested at the moment is whether president trump can force congress toed adjourn or convince them to do make these recess appointments. that's different than the way it's happened in the past, including under the obama administration. from our understanding so far, it hasn't been tried before but it could be possible. do you have insight into this? >> well, as my understanding thus far, i think it's probably consistent with what your understanding is, is that there is a back and forth between the house and the senate in determining when they go into recess. that's critical for the reasons you mentioned when you were doing your introduction, and what the supreme court has said. the senate decides when it is, in fact, in recess, and recess appointments can't be made in a short period of time, in a catastrophic moment after -- between three and ten days, but most of the time after ten days. whether or not the president has authority to tell the

legislative branch when it is, in fact, in recess, i haven't seen that. i haven't heard of that. that seems to me that it would be a breach of the checks and balances that exist, and that are -- have been so jealously guarded between these two institutions. now, i'll also tell you on friday, the institute hosted a conversation between congressman chip roy, a very conservative member of congress, and in conversation with evan smith, a former editor of the texas tribune. while congressman roy indicated believes that presidents should have their nominees, he also said, but i believe in the advice and sent responsibility of the senate. he represents a number of members of congress, around by reporting today, republicans reporting in the senate, are taking a hard look at this, as well. >> thank you for being with us,

melody barnes, executive director of the karch institute of democracy at the university of virginia school of law. coming up, what trump's cabinet picks mean for the future of the wars in the middle east and ukraine and why people gravitate toward populism, and what we need to learn from places around the world where democracy has failed in order to ensure that ours does not. oes n.

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so now we're his “squad”. what are kevin's plans for the fall? he's going to college. out of state, yeah. -yeah in the fall. change of plans, i've decided to stay local. oh excellent! oh that's great! why would i ever leave this? -aw! we will do anything to get him gaming again. you and kevin need to fix this internet situation. heard my name! i swear to god, kevin! -we told you to wait in the car. everyone in my old squad has xfinity. less lag, better gaming! i'm gonna need to charge you for three people. nbc news is reporting that more than half of senate republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, are privately expressing doubt that the former congressman matt gaetz could be confirmed as attorney general, according to multiple republican sources who have spoken to nbc news on condition of anonymity. that's why trump's stated intention, as we have been discussing, to use recess appointments to bypass senate confirmation becomes such an important issue.

we'll likely not be able to pull that off without some cooperation from senate republicans, but by and large, senate republicans are taking their roles for the moment to confirm trump's appointments seriously. senator mark wayne mullen of oklahoma said on "meet the press" that the senate should see the house ethics report on matt gaetz. >> should the house ethics committee release that report, senateer? >> absolutely, and i believe the senate should have access to that. now, should it be released to the public or not, that's -- i guess that will be part of the negotiations, but that should be part of our decision making. >> joining me now for the latest on how this is playing out in congress is nbc news correspondent julie circuit. busy weekend, considering not in session. the issues here -- this is a fast developing story. what are republicans going to do about the growing controversy around matt gaetz and other nominees? >> i have a feeling we'll be

busy 24/7 for the next four years. it's interesting that senator mullen, a republican who used to be in the house until a few years ago, had that to say. i say that not because i question his position, he's had that position since wednesday, that he wants to see the report. he had some not nice things to say about matt gaetz, saying that he would likely vote for gaetz if that's who president-elect trump wants. but speaker johnson was also on the sunday shows this morning, saying that he does not believe that ethics report, as he told us previously, should be released to the public. not only that, he doesn't believe that the senate needs their hands on it. he said there are other things they'll have in their possession, background checks from the fbi, potentially elements of the department of justice's investigation into gate as couple of years ago, as well. but not the house ethics report. he said it's not relevant. you're going to hear calls from

senate republicans find gaetz unqualified to lead the agency that once investigated him. that being said, as we have seen before, there's a difference what they think now, what they say now, and the pressure they will be under in january when trump is sitting across pennsylvania avenue in the white house. >> julie, thank you for your continued reporting. still to come, donald trump's first term in his actions in the years since have mirrored the early records of autocrats like vladamir putin. it's what my next guest calls the unspoken promise of trump's rump. of trump's rump

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for eight years, he stewed on a plan to claw his way back. "the new york times" writing -- >> when he returned to power in 2010, he made sure he would stay in power by gerrymandering parliament, filling the court with loyalists and gifting himself emergency powers, emergency that. he hasn't left office since, and is the longest serving head of state in nato. now he refers to hungary asen inliberal state. trump has lavished praise on orbon saying they say he's a strong man. sometimes you need a strong man. and in the wake of donald trump's ascent back to the white house, leaning on lessons from

elsewhere, places democracy has failed or they have existed at all. in a new york -- in a new column in "the new york times," he holds conversations with a hungarian author and scholar to understand how a people can gravitate toward trumpism as a bond to their problems saying -- >> he isn't interested in falling donald trump a fascist. he sees the appeal in terms of something more primal. trump promises that you don't have to think about other people. he joins me now from "the new york times," and author of self-important books, including "surviving autocracy." thank you for being back with us today. >> good to be here. >> you write trump's first term and his actions track the early record of putin and orbon in

important ways. based on that, what do you think we're likely to expect? >> so as you say, he is sort of my intellectual guiding light of all things autocracy. one of the things he pointed out was that these kinds of populist autocrats like trump wants to be, like putin is, are -- they go after institutions, but they go after institutions oh of a particular kind in a particular way. he calls them the institutions of public deliberation. these are the places like universities, like the media, like our legislative institutions, religious groups, where we work at our obligations to one another and to others, like our obligations to people with disabilities, to aid in the war in ukraine. so that's a helpful way of thinking about all of trump's

boogiemen from universities. that campaign will very much continue, and it's very scary and will completely reshape the higher education system in this country, to congress, to the media. all of this is a way of getting these media institutions out of the way so trump can tell the nation what's good for it. >> talk to me about this concept of a transition from the rule of law to the law of rule. what does that mean? >> right. so this is another formulation that i love. he's the master of this kind of binary affirmism. he's talking about something we have already seen with trump, the transition from legislation to rule by decree or, in the u.s. case, rule by executive order. now, a lot of the preconditions were created long before trump came into office, including the fact that the united states has several ongoing states of national emergency going, one of

them continuously since february 14th, 2001, which gives the president extraordinary powers should he choose to use them. and, of course, the ability to rule by decree and the need to sometimes rule by decree with a totally dysfunctional congress, which is also something that predates trump. so he is in a position to do what orbon and putin have done very, very quickly. i was also struck in reading some of the writing about what feels to me about the mood that a company is at, which is something that we remember very well from trump's first term, that sense of totally being overwhelmed, and not knowing what to focus on, and what is existentially threatening, and what is a minor thing, and how do you tell the difference between these two. we're going back into that state, right? that state of just everything being so loud all at once. and that is not a coincidence. that is the way a country is

changed, because the public is shut out, you can't pay attention or participate, and that's a way of getting us to that authoritarian space, where people retreat into their private lives, while the authoritarian does whatever he wants to do. >> we were seeing that play out in our conversations with people, who just want to back out of it. on this show, we have covered project 2025 a great deal. i carried around my copy of it for several months. you write in this column that it's not the specifics of project 2025 that matter. i just want to read about this -- >> explain the distinction

point. >> so it's mpting to look at project 2025 and see it as a first draft of legislation. if you look at it closely, you'll see that there are lots of contradictory recommendations there. what they do have in common are basically two things. one, they're all written by trump supporters, and people that trump wants to have near him. so it's much more important in this system of government than what we imagine to be legislative agenda. and the other thing that they have in common is they're anti-threat call anti- tithethical to the process, with'm and other nations. so there are many different ways of destroying it, and you won't necessarily be able to tease out any particular way from project 2025.

so we can't predict the actual legislation, but what we can predict is the effect, the effect of seeing the government turn into an unrecognizable shambles. >> masha, good to see you. thank you for joining us. masha is the author of self-books. coming up, congressman matt gaetz has spread misinformation on january 6th, and now he could be overseeing the investigations into those defendants. next, why some in the doj are worried. me in the doj are worried. it's the holidays at wayfair! y'all it's a gift swap. you gotta swap your gifts. but this pillow is so me. yes, that's because you brought it. no no no. come on y'all! this is exactly what i was wishing for. perfect swap. my turn. what the fudge? now that's a holiday classic. just like you. you got a place for that?

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donald trump's decision to nominate matt gaetz to be next attorney general of the united states has worried members of wong and the justice department. the very law enforcement agency that gaetz himself would be running. justice reporter ryan riley, one big concern suffered apart from many others about matt gate >> the cases against the january 6th rioters. gaetz has spread lies about the january 6th attack on the capitol and championed the cause of january 6th defendants. and now gaetz will be overseeing those case it is confirmed to the job of attorney general. riley reports --

>> joining me now for more on this is ryan riley. good to see you, my friend. thank you for joining us. many january 6th rioters have not even been arrested, let alone gone through the legal process. donald trump has already said he might pardon some, if not all of the rioters. so talk to me about where we are on this. >> yeah. so there are hundreds of people who haven't been arrested yet. a lot of those are probably misdemeanor offenses, so some of those might not have been able to get past before the statute of limitations had naturally expired, which is coming up not far away. it will be five years, which is is the statute of limitations in january of next year. now obviously this could just shave a full year basically off of the entire investigation all together. what the online sleuths have i spoken with are focused on are these particular 75 defendants who are on the fbi's own

website, who have been identified to the bureau, but have not been arrested. there are a variety of reasons why those cases haven't been brought over the finish line. there is a little dissent in the fbi in some of these field offices about people who aren't so enthusiastic about bringing forward these cases for various reasons, many of them political. but that's basically where things stand now. they're focusing on those 75. but across the board, one thing that really just stuck out to me when i was reporting out the story was that january 6th supporters and people within the broader justice department apparatus, are kind of on the same page about matt gaetz. i had one supporter describe him as a wrecking ball. that's the wife of a january 6th defendant, the first defendant to go to trial. she's out there by the jail almost every night, supporting january 6th defendants. she described him as a wrecking ball, but in a positive way, whereas doj employees take that many a much different way. >> ryan, what is the sense of

the pardons, preemptive pardons. you said a number of people have not been arrested or charged yet. is there some methodology that might be underway? >> that's tough to tell. i did get a statement from the transition this week saying -- from the trump team, saying that they would do this on a case by case basis. that's the same language that was said back in april, that they're going to look at these cases individually. that's not what january 6th defendants and the community want. they want to do this collective action sort of thing where everyone gets pardoned, because that's a lot simpler. it will, i think, it's still to be determined basically, because donald trump could come in and say now we're going to sweep all these and do them at once. but at least his campaign staffer, the transition staff at least are making clear that the intention is to do these pardons on a one by one basis. remember, there's just a sprawling amount of video evidence in this case. that's what is going to be the

biggest question, when it comes to pardoning people who committed assaults on police officers, on videotape, where there's extensive evidence, is that a line donald trump is going to cross? we just don't know right now whether that's the case. it depends on the political environment, what the political environment is like within his own party. whether or not members would be worried about those videos being rolled in the future and being used against their own campaigns, whether they want to be associated with these violent, really awful attacks on law enforcement officers. >> ryan, good to see you. thank you for joining us. up next, donald trump's cabinet picks have been coming fast. we'll dissect what his selections mean for the future of the fighting in middle east and relations with israel, after the break. the break.

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dynamic, with trump returning to office, the chess board and the players them severals who are dealing with the crisis are about to change. let's start at the top with the president-elect who made improving relations with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu a top priority during his first term, stating that peace would be easy and put his son-in-law, jared kushner, in charge of achieving it. he was unsuccessful. trump visited israel in may 2017, the earliest visit made in a presidential term. trump was the first sitting president to visit the western wall to recognize the golan heights, considered part of syria, and to recognize jerusalem, considered disputed by the international community, as the capital of israel. he also met with the president of the palestinian authority during his trip and hosted him at the white house early in his tenure, however, abbas severed relations after trump moved the u.s. embassy to jerusalem in 2017 and they did not speak

until they held a call following trump's second election earlier this month. trump said he will "work to stop the war." trump's relationship with israel and benjamin netanyahu is far warmer. trump hosted netanyahu at the white house weeks into his first term in office and they shared a close relationship throughout the first trump administration. that changed a bit after trump left office. he said he was annoyed netanyahu congratulated biden quickly. trump was critical of netanyahu after the october 7th attack. however, they've become friendly again, with both sides saying they talk regularly, sometimes daily. since trump's re-election, netanyahu has replaced his defense minister, who has been critical of netanyahu, with a loyalist. netanyahu has also selected a new ambassador to the united states who currently lives in the occupied west bank, and is a major supporter, not just of israeli settlements, but of the

actual annexation of the west bank. what that essentially means is there no longer would be any disputed territory, and therefore no two-state solution. the region would be just part of israel. that's a commonly held position with many right wing israelis. on the u.s. side, other major players have changed. the u.s. will have a new ambassador to israel, mike huckabee, the former governor of arkansas and former republican candidate for president in 2008 and 2016. he hosted a show on fox news between those campaigns and is a southern baptist pastor who leads tours in israel for evangelical christians. huckabee has, in the past, rejected the idea of palestinian identity saying in 2008, "there's really no such thing as a palestinian," and that it's instead a "political tool to try to force land away from israel" and that "if real estate is the issue, they should be taking it out of surrounding arab lands." speaking of a trip to a west

bank settlement in 2017, huckabee said there's no such thing as a west bank, those are judia and samaria, biblical references to the area. he also said "israel has a title deed to judia and samaria." on the same day that donald trump announced huckabee's ambassadorship, he also announced steve whitcoff, who is trump's long-time golf partner and has no experience in middle east relations or foreign policy. he did speak during several of trump's campaign events and attended netanyahu's speech to congress in july. the former representative elise stefanik, trump's pick as ambassador to the united nations, clevered a speech to the israel i knesset in may, saying the u.s. should supply israel with what it needs, when it needs it, without conditions to achieve total victory in the

face of evil. she also had a high profile role in republican-led congressional hearings in anti-semitism on college campuses, leaving to the depart chers of the presidents of the university of pennsylvania, harvard and columbia. marco rubio has called for full u.s. military aid to israel and critical of joe biden for not being strong and forceful enough. if confirmed, he would also have the war in ukraine on his agenda. up next, i'll talk to congressman vinman. o congressman vinman [♪♪] did you know, serums are concentrated with powerful ingredients to visibly improve your skin? try olay super serum. for five powerful ingredients in one, it hydrates, improves texture and evenness, while also firming and smoothing. try olay super serum. i've been worn by celebrities, athletes, and world leaders. but i've always felt most comfortable up here,

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overnight, russia conducted one of its largest bombardments of ukraine in recent months, striking energy, infrastructure, and other things, according to ukraine's volodymyr zelenskyy. it comes as russia makes steady gains along the main front of fighting in eastern ukraine. despite past differences, zelenskyy and trump have spoken several times recently, both before and after trump won the election, and zelenskyy has said he thinks the war "will end faster with the incoming administration" and has praised what he says is trump's peace through strength approach. joining me now is eugene vinman, congressman-elect from virginia's 7th district, and

joining us not for the first time joining me as a congressman-elect, but certainly for the first time from the halls of congress. thank you for joining us this morning. >> great to be here. thanks for having me. >> zelenskyy is trying to do what a world leader who needs the support of the international community and nato needs to do, and that is not get into a fight with the guy he probably didn't prefer won the election. but we have seen some cracks. we have seen the german chancellor get on a phone call for the first time with volodymyr zelenskyy to talk about some sort of negotiated end to the war. what's your sense of where we are right now in these important days before the inauguration? >> sure, look, the war won't end with just pressure on ukraine. ukraine has been under pressure for the majority of the last 2 1/2 years. the war is going to end with pressure on vladamir putin, and right now, vladamir putin feels emboldened. he's got the initiative across the battlefield, making

incremental gains, not serious gains at this point, but causing damage like the attacks he rained down on ukraine, civilian infrastructure targets yesterday. so it's really going to require pressure on russia and putin, and i'm not sure we're going to get that kind of pressure with the types of nominations that we're seeing from the future president and tulsi gabbard and folks that have never large organizations like the nominee for defense secretary, or had any strategic level sort of decision making. so, there's going to need to be a concerted effort and pressure on the russians and not just the ukrainians. >> you brought up a couple of points. people that have not had experience like pete hegseth running a large or small organization. the military is a large and complicated organization. but the tulsi gabbard thing seems to be of greater concern, because she's echoed kremlin

talking points over many, many years, well prior to the ukraine invasion. but she has uttered a remarkably important talking point, that is somehow the united states and nato, in expanding, have forced russia into the invasion of ukraine, which is a logic mind trick to get there. >> yeah, that's true. i mean, the range of nominations right now are folks that i might have a serious disagreement on policy, but are qualified to unqualified to folks that are at best commitment to rule of law and very much unqualified. i would put tulsi gabbard in that category. it's concerning, but no less concerning than the nomination for the secretary of defense, somebody who served honorably in a combat role, but has never led a large organization, has

espoused views that are questionable, again, to the commitment to the 1.2 million people serving in uniform. and i think that we need to have serious people in these positions, and the senate and congress has a role to play in that and a co-equal branch of government. >> unusually for congress, which is for many years seen russia as an adversary which america needs to prepare itself, that waning support for ukraine, it has still been being held at bay in congress, even in a republican controlled congress. do you see that changing? obviously, you're going to be an important voice to convince fellow members of congress on the other side of the aisle why that's important and now you'll be with them in that room, but where do you see that going? will congress stay on this side of being supportive of ukraine or push over to the executive side, what the trump administration is more keen on? >> well, look, i'm just getting to know some of my new colleagues on the other side of

the aisle, as well. and there's some serious folks there. there are folks that come with military background, national security background. i look forward to working with my colleagues, and the people of my district elected me to improve their quality of life and get the job done. i'm going to work in a bipartisan manner where i can, and look to hold the other side and the president to account, where i think we have to draw the line. so it's as simple as that. we need to move forward, and we need to vigorously defend our national security interest abroad. i think that's one area where we can work closely with the other side. but, you know, there are some concerning appointments, some concerning nominations, and i think congress is going to have a significant role in reining in some of these worst excesses. >> if things are blurry about russia, they are less blurry about north korea. u.s. officials said there are 10,000 north korean troops in

russia right now, many in the kursk region, and they're fighting against ukrainian troops across the border. donald trump continues to brag about his rosy relationship with kim jong-un. at one point saying they "fell in love." this is a real issue. north korea is helping russia against troops that we are backing. what do you make of the north korean part of this threat? >> well, it's sort of further internationalizing, globalizing a conflict in europe. so a north korean troops on european soil, fighting a european war, it's concerning. the fact that they're on russian territory, i think in some ways is becoming where that mission stands is probably the most -- in a dangerous scenario, perhaps the most benign version. but in any case, to have those troops fighting in europe it

expands the conflict. it's inflammatory and i think it's problematic. it just increases the probability or likelihood that there will be other nation troops that are fighting in ukraine. >> congressman-elect, thank you for being here. congressman vinman, a retired army lieutenant colonel. and that does it for me. thank you for watching. catch me back here every saturday and sunday morning from 10:00 a.m. to noon eastern. give thn social media conversation, you can follow me on threads, blue sky, linkedin. i've been posting content daily for over a year on these sites and plan to do so. stay where you are. "inside" begins right now. "inside" begins right now. behind the middle surroundin