please welcome julia ioffe! (cheers and applause) julia ioffe, thank you so much for being here. a senior editor at the new republic and you've worked for the "new yorker." you're a native russian even though you're an american citizen, came here when you were seven. >> mm-hmm. >> stephen: we are talking a lot these days about the ukraine and russia and that relationship. i know this is a huge story and i care about it. why is it huge and why do i care in ways i never care about other international stories. i can ignore the rest of the world. why has this got us all gripped? >> people didn't care about this conflict very much at all. it had come off the front pages for the last couple of months, nobody was paying attention to it until a plane with citizens of like a dozen countries was downed by a missile by these knuckleheads fighting in the region. >> stephen: is that a technical term? >> an i.r. term. >> stephen: you have spent time with these russian separatists in the ukraine. >> they call themselves the volunteers. they call themselves the people's republic of donetsk, but

julia ioffe, the new republic! we launched snapshot, my life has been positively cray-cray. what's snapshot, you ask? only a revolutionary tool that can save you big-time. just plug it in, and the better you drive, the more cash you'll stash. switching to progressive can already save ye $500. snapshot could save ye even more. meat maiden! bringeth to me thine spiciest wings of buffalo. break the ice, with breath freshening cooling crystals. ice breakers. so i use old spice to smell like a real human man. [people gasping] is this seat taken? it is now. >> stephen: well, that's it for the show, everybody. but before we go, i just want to take one last opportunity to thank my good friend p.k. winsome. thank you for being here tonight and thank you for being here for the past nine years. >> my pleasure. >> stephen: might be the last time you're ever on the show because it's ending this year. you mind if i ask, p.k., before we go, what does park stand for? >> percy kittens. >> stephen: thank you, percy. thank you for yo

let's bring in julia ioffe of "new republic." i'll start with you.sly been banging this drum from before this incident happened today so it's not surprising to hear him say this now. i just want to -- i do want to play devil's advocate for a moment because there are a lot of people making the circumstantial case this had to be the russian rebels. "the new york times" reporting on the scene today in an area that is rebel controlled shows rebels in that area essentially cleaning up the wreckage and betraying at least in the reporting zero culpability or knowledge of how the plane came down. how plausible is it to you this was not the rebels, it was not the russians, it was an accident by someone else? >> i mean, i think until we know, we don't know, right? but i think that that's really, i think the possibilities of that are getting slim. especially if you consider the fact that the rebels have been bragging about this. they've been bragging that they can bring down planes. and just today, about an hour before we found out about this malaysia airlines

. >>> for more now on vladimir put continue and the united states, we return to julia ioffe.e our go-to person for information about putin. i saw this poll yesterday, too. 83% approval rating in russia for vladimir putin. that puts him at the highest rating since 2008. it seems like every time there's a confrontation like this with the west, by not acknowledging anything, he only gets stronger at home. when you start talking about sanctions and the response that the west can make, is there any leverage that the west has at all here? >> that's the thing. i'm not sure what the west can really do at this point other than ramping up sanctions. maybe europe will be more on board given that a bunch of eu -- several hundred eu citizens have died. but he's also shown that he's willing to tolerate a certain amount of economic pain for what he perceives for a geopolitical gain or what he perceives to be a geopolitical gain. when the sanctions were first rolled out and crimea was annexed, one of his deputy prime ministers, who is responsible for the aerospace industry said, you know wha

. >> julia ioffe from the new republic. thank you. >>> a truly astounding bafrling development between the u.s. and one of its closest allies on what was the bloodiest day in the three-week conflict with gold topaz za. israel pounding, leave 128 palestinians dead and 128 million gaza residents without power or water after the main power station was struck. it's put a severe strain in u.s./israel relations particular li over the last few day, the white house publicly calling for a cease-fire. israel asserting they'll continue until they get their request. and hammering john kerry about bringing a cease-fire between israel and hamas. >> you do not negotiate with the hamas or beg with the hamas. what secretary kerrie did with israel is a mistake. you put israel and hamas on the same level. secretary kerry proposed an insult for us. >> today's israel channel 1 aired what they 15id was a transcript of a private call between president obama and benjamin netanyahu, a reportedly tense conversation. it's a leak that if real would re

and richard haass and julia ioffe. welcome to you all. martha, you have been living this first hand. ping-ponging in all these crises spots. >> i was in iraq. then israel. i returned to the shootdown of the malaysian airliner. this is an astonishingly bad time for the world. i mean, we can't say enough. you heard jonathan say that. places on the the map that airplane can't fly. you have an administration trying to deal with them all. i think one of the things you have to do is go back and look to see where they were focused over these past few years. john kerry was focused on israel and look at it today. >> look at it today. >> we herd the former chief say it's difficult to deal with two, three, four crises at the same time. are secretary kerry and john mccain correct when they say the world is in greater turmoil than any time before? >> any time is a big phrase. the bottom line is, it's in enormous turmoil. very different kinds. the asia-pacific is similar to europe 100 years ago where medium and grade-sized powers are jockeying. real fr

julia ioffe, thank you for joining us tonight. that is "all in" this evening. "the rachel maddow show" begins now. >>> good evening chris. thank you, man. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. newspapers feel like they need two front pages. this is the home page for "the new york times" right now. they basically split their available real estate as a newspaper to do two lead stories at once. it's the same thing at "the wall street journal." essentially making both these stories their lead story right now. same thing, again, at "the washington post." in the space of 31 minutes this afternoon, the news broke that u.s. intelligence had confirmed that the passenger jet that crashed in ukraine today was shot down by a missile fired from the ground. within 31 minutes of that announcement the news also broke the israeli prime minister instructed the ooisraeli milita to start a ground invasion of gaza. this is a rare day of these two huge news stories breaking, essentially simultaneously. we're going to have a lot of information, a lot of interviews over the

julia ioffe who covers russia for the new republic said that story fanned rumors that the victims wereinstead that plane was taken by the u.s., all of the passengers onboard were killed and drained of blood and taken to holland and packed with explosives and at the necessary time it blew up. >> reporter: the russian media has a cozy relationship with the kremlin. >> once a week all of the heads of the main tv channels go to the kremlin and meet with the they discuss how they're going d to cover the news. they basically set an agenda for the coming week. >> reporter: russian outlets have followed the kremlin's lead and pointed the finger at ukraine. this is a decorated pilot speaking on russia's channel 1. >> translator: knowing so quickly what happened, who downed the plane and why, speaks to the fact that ukraine downed the plane themselves. they knew they downed the plane themselves and now they're trying to quickly escape the situation. >> one correspondent for the russian network was so upset by coverage of the crash she quit last week. she was based in london accused the network o