i'm joined by ann applebaum. she's the author of "red famine." , let me ask you first, why is ukraine playing such a big role? if you step back, what explains this, you know -- why are we -- why did ukraine become such a later part of this story? >> so it's very important to remember that donald trump brought ukraine into america politics when he hired paul manafort to be his campaign manager. paul lived in kiev, spent much of the last decade in ukraine, and mostly identified with viktor yanukovych. he's the president who escaped the country following mass demonstrations. >> he was the pro-russian president. >> he was the pro-russian president, profoundly corrupt, who altered the constitution, who enriched hi family and his son who built a villa outside of kiev. when trump brought manafort in, he brought manafort's methods, tactics and friends. this is the -- this is really the origin, why ukraine became part of u.s. politics. >>> do you think there's more to uncover here? poroshenko was involved in some of these issues. he was asked by biden to f

to help us make sense of all of this, i'm joined again by ann applebaum, a foreign affairs columnist for washington post. she's the author of "red famine stalin's war on ukraine". ann, why is ukraine playing such a big role in all of this? like, if you step back, is there -- what explains this, you know, why are we -- why did ukraine become such a large part of this story? >> it's very important to remember that donald trump brought ukraine into american politics when he hired paul manafort to be his ukraine manager. paul manafort spent most of the previous decade in ukraine. he lived in kiev. he was profoundly and closely identified with ukraine's former president. he's the president who was -- escaped from the country following mass demonstrations in 2014. >> he was the pro russian president. >> he was pro russian president who was profoundly corrupt, who altered the constitution and sought to take power, who enriched his family and his son, who built a villa with gold taps and all kinds of vulgar art objects. that was manafort's link to ukraine. when he brought manafort, he brought