john roberts in washington and so begins another week, sandra. sandra: sets us up for an exciting afternoon. i m sandra smith in new york. the former director of national intelligence john ratcliffe said he had no knowledge of the sky establishment in 2019. were you aware of the cuba spy center? there wasn t one, maria, this kind of surveillance platform was present and allowed is just absurd. john: the china spy base is only about 100 miles from american shores and according to reports, it lets china eavesdrop on everything from phone calls and emails to communications within the u.s. military. sandra: florida congressman mike waltz how the u.s. should stop china from expanding the global footprint. gillian turner, what s the latest? gillian: secretary of state tony blinken wrapped a presser in which he appeared to confirm china has been operating a spy base inside cuba or trying to and it is part of this broader effort by the communist party to ramp up espionage
This sunday, turning against trump. The president s longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, is apparently prepared to say the president knew in advance about the Infamous Trump tower meeting with russians. It appears the president s former attorney and confidant is ready to talk. And cohen releases a tape discussing buying the story of a former playmate who says she had an affair with trump. What financing . Well have to pay something. And well pay with cash. No, no, no, no, no. Rudy giuliani attacks cohen. The man is a liar, a proven liar. Not long after praising him. The man is an honest, honorable lawyer. Just how big a threat does cohen pose to President Trump . My guests this morning, former trump political advisor sam nunberg and republican senator rob portman of ohio. Plus guns and poses. Maria butina loves guns, cultivated conservatives and is
now in jail, arrested as a russian agent. Does she hold the key to an nra russia connection . And base politics. Today marks 100 days
back sanctions. the more our adversaries are aggressive, the more they infringe on our interests, the more in this case they harass our ships, our planes and international waters. you just had chinese nationals try to break into military bases in alaska, the spy balloon, the more the administration asks for more meetings. they believe if they can get the adversaries to the table, concede enough, talk enough, then they ll behave in line with the rules based order and the reality is our adversaries smell and see weakness and they will push until they are met with steel, hard power. john: the white house said not only did we know about this thing in cuba but took steps to mitigate it. what mike gallagher said about that. why did they deny it and then backtrack and blame the trump administration. it s not just this. the exact same thing with the chinese spy balloon incident.
hurting russia, they are consolidating putin s power within the country and making him a more robust enemy of the united states. tucker: but wait, that is kind of the last thing we want to do, isn t it? i just want to assume for the purpose of this conversation, good intentions of the part of people who back sanctions, they most people for sanctions think they work, but you are saying they are having the opposite effect? i know individuals on the ground in russia who are frankly anti-putin and pro-western before this happened, and they have been impacted by these sanctions so much that they are now really turning against the west. your viewers may not realize this, tucker, but international calls are being blocked into russia, when russians try to call home, they get a message telling them to go expletive themselves, these are brutal measures making the russian turn against us in a really significant way. they are angry. they are angry at us about the way they are being treated.
act to get worse and worse overtime, as we basically sanctions in the past after the invasion of crimea, for example. so i think the indication now is that we are making up for lost time, sending very different signals. what guarantees can he give? i am not just something like that would require ukraine to have appropriate defenses in the country. so it would not be easy for russia to roll back in again. is it is easy to make would listen to gastric will come into the negotiation table? now, we need to keep those talks open. and i think people will be really important right now is communication between the u.s. administration and president-elect s case governments, over, what are those criteria where the united states would be willing to pull back sanctions? because at the stage, ensuring that zelenskyy s team knows with that is, so that they can they can communicate and calibrate accordingly, would be really helpful. it s so interesting how much time we have all devoted to