Theres major breakthroughs in the south. The Land Mine Situation was incredible. I could not be more proud of how theyve used the Military Equipment provided by our countries. Theyre putting pressure, theyve broken through the first defensive line. I think theyll split the Russian Forces in crimea in the next couple of weeks, months. So i am exceedingly proud of the ukrainian military. Well, that is extraordinarily upbeat, if i may say so, compared with what we see in leaks from Classified Pentagon documents suggesting, and im quoting here from a leak in the washington post, that kyiv wont fulfil its Principal Objective of severing that land bridge to crimea in this years counter offensive. I think theyre wrong. Those same people told us kyiv would fall in four days, that the whole country would be in russian hands in two weeks. I go there enough to know whats real and whats not. Its been extremely tough sledding because of all the mines, but when they get contact with the russians, the russians fold pretty quickly. Youve got a bunch of conscripts that would rather not die in ukraine if they didnt have to. Youve got highly motivated Ukrainian Civilian Population and soldiers. No, i am very pleased. It has been slower than some thought. But when you look at whats happened in the last 48 hours, good news awaits us here. Ill tell you whats also been slower than you wanted, that is the scale and the quality of us military assistance. Amen. Months and months ago you were talking about getting f 16s into the battle space. Yes. It hasnt happened yet. Its clearly not going to happen until next year. Also abrams tanks, which were pledged a long time ago, they are still not on the battlefield. Well, they completed training yesterday, the abrams training. I have been very frustrated, along with democrats, quite frankly, to provide Game Changing weapons that the ukrainians can use to evict the russians. To your country, the storm shadow has been a game changer. It is a missile that can be launched inside of ukraine and hit deep inside crimea. So now they do have cluster bombs. Theyre really wreaking havoc on fortified infantry positions. The abrams tank is due to show up soon. Itll be months before the f 16 gets there, but the himars. The Weapon Systems they need have been slow to get there. But once they arrive in theatre, the ukrainians are using them to good effect. I think the slowness has extended the war and allowed the russians to get more fortified. But i do want to thank the Biden Administration for sticking with it. Youre also looking somewhat isolated these days inside your own party. The Republican Party still is committed to this fight on ukraines behalf. But the fact is, if you look at the polling evidence, Republican Voters are moving away from support for ukraine. Its about one to one. And what you see is that, like, i think a lot of republicans are frustrated that were not all in to win it. Nobody wants american troops. And, you know, after 20 years of war in iraq and afghanistan, this is not an unusual situation. Whats happening here is i tell my colleagues, we need to sell the war better. If putin wins, there goes china. Most republicans believe it was a mistake to withdraw from afghanistan, and set in motion the bad guys. Well, heres what i would tell my republican colleagues. You think biden made a mistake getting out of afghanistan . If you Pull The Plug on ukraine, thats afghanistan on steroids. If we give up on supporting ukraine who doesnt want any soldiers, theyjust want the weapons then thats a signal to china, were not up to the task. Soa lot. And putin will not stop in ukraine. Its beginning to turn, i think. The more battlefield success, the better the numbers will be. Senator, how does what youve just said square with your fulsome support of donald trump as the republican nominee for president . Donald trump plainly does not agree with you when it comes to ukraine. I dont think donald trump plainly states anything about ukraine. Well, hes what he plainly stated a while ago is, if i were president , ill end the war in one day. Its going to take 2a hours. That deal between zelensky and putin, he said, would be easy. Yeah. The only way that can make sense is if trump wants a deal which allows russia to retain ukrainian territory and you know it. Yeah, well, heres what i can tell you about president trump. He provided javelins on his watch that allowed the ukrainians to stop the advance. So that was a good thing. Heres what i would say about ending the war in 2a hours or not. This is sort of typical trump that, ill bring the war to a conclusion. Its nonsense, isnt it . No. Well, i think its. I think its real that if trump were president , they wouldnt have invaded ukraine. But with greatest respect, thats irrelevant. What matters now. If you are serious about backing donald trump for president. Im very serious. Is what trump would do if he were in the white house. Mike pence, who, of course, was his running mate and his Vice President , says, if you talk about solving it in a day, that means you give Vladimir Putin what he wants. Yeah, i dont see it that way. I know trump pretty well. If he gets to be president , and hes got a decent chance of it, by next year, by the november of 2024, i think the ukrainians are going to have major battlefield success. President trumps not going to pull the. Victory. Defeat from the jaws of victory. Im very confident that the Republican Senate will support a supplemental. The point you make is legitimate. I think there are people in europe that. Like the germans. How does this end . Let me tell you how. But in a sense, what im most interested in is the impact this debate inside your party is having on Vladimir Putin. To Quote Dan Fried A respected former Us Ambassador he says, putin thinks he can outlast the americans because he thinks Political Support for ukraine will be compromised if donald trump wins. Well, hes made a series of miscalculations. That would be one of them. Were not going to Pull The Plug on ukraine. Were going to continue to support the ukrainian efforts to evict the russians. Putins made the blunder of the 21st century. He invaded, thinking he would quickly wipe out the country. He is. Larger nato today than before the invasion. The rouble is in the toilet and he has an Arrest Warrant against him. Were not going to let him get away with this. So i feel really confident, confident that the ukrainians can win and there will be support at home. And i want to Say Something about the british government. Theyve been terrific. What on earth has happened to your Republican Party . If you look at the three it seems by the polls the three leading contenders for the nomination for president Candidate Status right now, that is donald trump and ron desantis and vivek ramaswamy. All of them, in one way or another, are saying, we need to end our commitment to ukraine now. There needs to be peace now, and that means we negotiate with putin. Yeah. Now, you dont agree with any of that and yet these are the three people most likely to lead your party into the next election. I think theyre reflecting some of the unease in the Republican Party about how this war ends. A lot of frustration with biden is the way hes conducted the war. But heres what i will tell you. The next Commander In Chief in 2025 is going to have a situation, i think, where putins on his back foot and to Pull The Plug would be the biggest mistake any american president could make. One thing about trump, you know, he talked about getting afghanistan and he set in motion the withdrawal, but he kept 2,500 troops there. Let me tell you something that most people dont understand. Trump is very glad he didnt Pull The Plug on afghanistan on his watch. He saw what happened afterwards. And ive told him if you or anybody gives putin a lifeline, thats the worst single signal you could send to china. Youve told him . 0h, totally. What did he say . Well, i think he understands. No. Be straight with me. What did he say to you . He says, the best way to defend taiwan is not have to go to war, convince the taiwan. The chinese that it would be. The downside is larger than the upside, to be strong. And i said, mr president , how does ukraine fit in . If the chinese see us Pull The Plug on ukraine to give putin a lifeline, you better get ready for a war with china. And i dont think he believes thats a, um, unrealistic scenario. Ron desantis is kind of all over the board. Heres where we run into problems. Everybody wants to thump their chest about china, and thats good. Lets stand up to the chinese. Heres what i would tell democrats and republicans. To be weak in ukraine means that you lose taiwan. Just one other point on foreign policy, cos i do want to get to domestic matters. But on foreign policy, youve worked closely with democrats on ukraine. Yeah. I notice youre also quite involved. Theyve been terrific, by the way. Yeah. The Democratic Party has been terrific. And i notice you are working with the Biden Administration on a very ambitious. Yeah. Mid east vision, which involves reaching out to mbs, as we call him, saudi arabias crown prince, to be the architect of a peace deal with israel, which would pull the saudis in and which presumably would offer something to the palestinians. Theres much debate about whether biden can deliver this. Do you believe he can . And are you helping him . Well, for a year ive been helping. It started with the Abraham Accords. President trump on his watch signed the Abraham Accords where the uae and other arab nations normalised relationships with israel. That was a big accomplishment. The next logical step is saudi arabia, which is the big prize, right . So the Biden Administration is trying to build on the Abraham Accords. They have been negotiating very closely with saudi arabia. And ill tell you what the deal would look like. Saudi arabia wants a Defence Agreement with the United States thats bigger than the individual. Security guarantees . Yes, they want a Defence Agreement that would transcend a presidency. They want more certainty in the relationship. And you think the us is right to consider that when we know what happened to jamal khashoggi, thejournalist murdered in istanbul . Yes. We know the Human Rights Abuses that continue in saudi arabia. All true. And youre absolutely four square for that deal . Let me tell you why. Because the crown prince and the king are moving the country in a different direction. Ijust got back. I thought i would never go after khashoggi. That was really, really hard. I talked to the president , ive talked to sullivan, ive talked to mcgurk. The saudis are investing a trillion dollars to change their economy. Theyre building new cities. Women can drive. You can go, as a woman, out unescorted. Hes making a bid to fundamentally change his country and to modernise it. I told him personally, you will never get your money back until you change the brand of your country. I could not give away a free trip to saudi arabia in South Carolina today. What would change that relationship or that brand . Get an agreement with the United States, recognise israel, then all doors are open. All right. I want to go to domestic matters now. So lets get to donald trump for president , what it means for the United States. He is now facing four criminal trials in the coming year. The bottom line is there are some really serious charges, including allegations which, of course, trump still denies, charges that he was involved in an effort to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election. You know this is serious stuff. Yeah, i was there. And yet youre telling the American People this is still the guy that should be in the white house. Yeah. Im seeing the legal system weaponised. The jurisdictions hes being prosecuted in are incredibly liberal. We all saw january the 6th. I dont hold him criminally liable for what happened onjanuary 6th, he didnt go into the capitol. Heres why hes doing better. Theres a backlash among conservatives against the prosecution of trump for everything all the time. The liberal media throughout the world is trying to marginalise him every day. We believe those who support him believe hes the best person we could send into the arena to stand up to the liberal media. Hang on. Yeah, youre getting political. I just want to stay legalfor a moment. They talk over each other. Well, this is the nub of it, isnt it . Youre an experienced lawyer. All that is happening to donald trump, it isnt weaponization. It is simply investigation, prosecution and due process. And you are delegitimizing americasjudicial system. Well, i believe in equal application of the law. So Classified Information being mishandled in mar a lago. Classified information during the clinton years wound up on anthony weiner� s computer. We know people in the clinton orbit took. This is. Nothing happened. This is what we call whataboutery. No, its not. Its about two people doing the same thing, one guy gets prosecuted, the other one doesnt. No. It clearly isnt. Hillary clintons misuse of Classified Information was fully investigated. No charges were brought. The point about donald trump is that he is going through due process. Have you heard whats happened with hunter biden . The effort not to prosecute clinton was legendary. We have two Whistle Blowers telling us that the fbi and the irs at every turn gave hunter biden breaks that nobody else gets. Whataboutery again. Plea deal that was rejected by thejudge and. I have nothing against hunter biden. I hate it when anybody� s family gets in trouble. But you dont get that most conservatives believe theres a double standard in the law in America Today when it comes to political figures. Whataboutery of a classic kind. Hunter biden now faces his own Special Counsel investigation. Lets see where the chips fall. Well, they picked. I would like you to return to donald trump. Bill barr, who was appointed attorney general by donald trump, says, these federal cases are legitimate. So why can you not accept that due process means he has to have his day in court . The question for you is whether its appropriate for that man, who may be in prison by the time of the November 2024 election, that man be your candidate for president . Heres what i would tell mr barr and anybody else. Be careful of charges being brought by political figures in deeply political areas. Therell be a day under this theory where some texas prosecutor will go after a democrat for allowing Illegal Immigrants to come across the state of texas and murder, rape and pillage. What i worry about is that youve got a county prosecutor, a city prosecutor bringing charges in very liberal venues, you got the Special Counsel, january 6th Special Counsel. Lets see how all this plays out. The reason republicans are going to nominate donald trump is they see the accusations against him being designed to reduce his ability to be president , not as righting wrongs. Thats the way most look at it. How far, senator graham, are you prepared to take this . If donald trump is convicted in one of these four trials before November 2024, will you still support him as the republican nominee . Yeah, i think so. Well, i dont know what hes going to be convicted of but, generally speaking, im not going to let these prosecutions affect my ability to support president trump. I see these prosecutions more political than anything else. A clear majority of americans right now approve of the Justice Department indicting donald trump. Thats from an august 16th poll from the associated press. And two thirds of americans right now have an unfavourable view of donald trump. This isnt working well for you. And 75 of americans thinks joe biden� s too old to run. 70 of americans think were on the wrong track, that the biden presidency has been a disaster. What would america like to see . Not to have a rematch. Thats the truth. If you ask the average american, would you like to have a rematch between trump and biden . They say no. The problem is that nobody� s going to beat trump in our primary because hes seen as the type guy to fix the problems we face today. But maybe thats an act of self harm amongst republicans. Listen to these words from the republican governor of new hampshire, chris sununu. Trump cant win in a general election. Independents hate all of this stuff that surrounds donald trump. There is no way trump wins more than 30 of independents. And thats why with trump republicans get crushed. Well, why isnt he running . If you look at the numbers joe biden has, theres no way he gets elected. Well, i think he could get re elected. I think donald trump could get a second term. Why . Were going to be trump biden, thats 90 sure were going to have the same two characters. How does trump win . It doesnt have to be this way. 0ur border can be secured. 0ur border can be secured. We can be safe, or we can be energy independent. We can be respected on the world stage all again, and we can lower inflation. I did it once, i can do it again. And what biden will say, you know, all the drama that weve had for the last four years only gets worse. The American People probably are going to have to pick from these two candidates, whether you like it or not. Thats probably whats going to happen. Isnt the truth that you have conceded, indeed in a book recently, you conceded that trump has quote personality problems, has a darkness within him. But you stick with trump cos you still want to be senator for South Carolina and you know youll be killed in your own party if you abandon donald trump. Isnt that the truth . Its pure opportunism. No, its. It goes this way. Theres a dark side to donald trump. And to be honest with you, he was a very good president , from my point of view. Im sticking with him because i saw what he did. He secured a broken border. We had the lowest illegal crossings on his watch in history. We had the strongest economy for working class people in history. He kills soleimani. He took the war to isis in syria and wiped them out. We were energy independent. He appointed judges that i recommended to him that are very conservative. Imjudging him by what he did as president. I think he can do all those things again. He got a vaccine developed in record time, so thats why im supporting president trump. Arent you ignoring the most important point that, right now, america faces the prospect of a guy being tried for his involvement in what amounted to a sort of half baked coup attempt, a guy running for president who divides your country . All of the surveys suggest that more and more americans are fearful of violence, political violence, in the run up to 2024. Are you . No, im not. I hope people will not resort to violence. I urge you not. If you dont like trump, vote against him. So heres what i would say about the narrative in europe and in our media. Conservatives have just about had it with this, that somehow if you support trump, youre supporting tyranny. We dont see it that way. Well, what do you calljanuary 6th . It was a bad day. I was there in the building. I condemned the hell out of it. Donald trump calls it a beautiful thing. He says, there was a lot of love onjanuary 6th. Well, there wasnt a lot of love in the capitol. Everybody who violated the capitol should go to jail. You know, defile the capitol, should go to jail. But were not going to talk about that. No, youre not going to face reality. No, no, no. That� s the truth. And thats why there are serious people in the United States worried about the potential for civil strife, political civil war. Robert pape at the university of chicago, he wrote this dangers to democracy report. It says, the number of americans who believe that use of force is justified to restore trump to the white house has increased markedly. He estimates maybe 18 million americans believe that force would be justified to put trump back in the white house. Well, anybody that uses force to try to put a person in the white house is going to jail. So the narrative that trump. These are people inside your party. Well, i dont know who they are. I dont know who you polled. Its the university of chicago. But heres what most republicans feel about this narrative, that the democrats, you, nobody in the liberal media covered the burning down of portland, the attacks on Police Officers in new york and chicago. Thatsjust one side. You should be afraid of conservatives. They will destroy your country. The Prime Minister in italy is being called a fascist because she wants to have stronger immigration. Conservatives all over the world are not going to be intimidated by this kind of rhetoric. Were going to show up based on policy, were going to campaign, were going to take back the senate, hopefully hold the house. President trump has at least a 50 50 chance of winning. And this idea of prosecuting him for 91 offences in very liberaljurisdictions is not going to change anything. If he wins, you have to ask yourself, why do people still support him . Because they see in him somebody that produced results that made our country stronger and safer, somebody Strong Enough to stand up to these attacks that can get america back on course at a time were sliding. Thats why he has this support. Senator lindsey graham, thank you very much forjoining me. Thank you, sir. Enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Inaudible chat hello, there. 0ur September Heatwave is set to continue with more sunshine around the corner over the next few days. Now, temperatures on tuesday reached 30. 8 celsius in hampshire. We dont see 30 degrees every single september. We had similar kind of temperatures back in 2021 and 2020. Now, so far this year, the highest temperature weve recorded all year was 32. 2 celsius and were going to get really close to that during wednesday. If we get past 32. 2, well, that becomes something quite unusual. There have only been four years in the last century that have had the hottest temperature of the year recorded in a september. So well be keeping a close eye on that stat. Now, right now, weve got some low Cloud Filtering in and around some of our north sea coasts, a little bit of mist and fog around as well, but otherwise clear and starry skies and pretty warm as well. Temperatures only towards dawn getting down to around 15 to 17 celsius. Now, you might have been hearing about the extreme rainfall weve seen across South East Europe with some severe flooding here. Were underneath this area of high pressure, though, and thats whats bringing us the fine, settled and sunny weather. So weve got more of that to come on wednesday. Any morning mist and fog, low cloud will tend to burn away from these eastern coasts and then the sunshine comes out. Its going to be another hot day. Temperatures quite widely in scotland and Northern Ireland reaching the mid 20s. But for england and wales, somewhere between 26 and 32 degrees for most of us, very hot for the time of year and could be the hottest day of the year so far. Now, for thursday, more of the same to come. A few subtle changes therell be a little bit more in the way of high cloud across North Western areas, making the sunshine little hazy. And youd be unlucky, but you could see an odd shower in the west as well. Most, though, will continue with the hot, dry, sunny weather with those high temperatures as well. For friday, probably a little bit more in the way of mist and fog patches running both through the irish sea coasts and also our north sea coasts. But aside from that, its another dry day with lots of sunshine around for the vast majority. Top temperatures, well, again, mid to high 20s, pretty widely. Low 30s in the very hottest areas. And weve got more of the same into the weekend. Its only really probably during the second part of the weekend and more especially next week, that we start to see the weather pattern breaking down, rain starts to arrive and those temperatures drop closer to normal for the time of year. Live from london, this is bbc news. The former leader of the far right proud boys, Enrique Tarrio, is sentenced to 22 years in jail for his role in the us capitol riots. The russian mercenary force the wagner group is to be officially classed as a terrorist organisation by britain. Birmingham council in england insists Vital Services will still be delivered despite the local authority effectively declaring itself bankrupt. And coming up in business how slimming can make you big a Danish Pharmaceutical Company becomes europes most valuable after a slimming drug proves a success. Hello, im sally bundock. We start in the us. A Court In Washington has jailed the former leader of the far right Proud Boys Group for 22 years for his part in the storming of the us congress. The sentence given to Enrique Tarrio is the longest of any of the hundreds convicted of involvement in the capitol riot of january 2021. Supporters of then us President Donald Trump stormed the congressional building as lawmakers met to certify joe biden� s election victory. Mr tarrio was not in washington during the riot, but helped organise the far right groups involvement. His lawyers said he plans to appeal. Lets cross live to los angeles to speak to our north america correspondent peter bowes. Peter, talk us