georgia by suppressing the vote there, by telling people, you know, the election is rigged before that special election. so his republican voters didn t go out and vote. and it cost perdue his seat. now perdue is running against kemp in this primary. the president is expected to endorse perdue. so they are splitting the republican party and what this tells you about donald trump is that he really doesn t care about unity in the republican party. what he cares about is vengeance. and his eyes are set on kemp. and so he wants to put him out of power. good point. charlie, it s worth remembering that perdue lost his re-election bid earlier this year. to democratic senator jon ossoff. do you view this as the former president putting his interests clearly over the party s interests once again? oh, of course i do.
want to bring in kaitlan collins and cnn contributor evan osnos, a staff writer at the new yorker. also the author of the new book wildland: the making of america s fury. putin is making demands. he s only gotten a lot more aggressive since he met with president biden in geneva back in june. you and i were there. what sort of tone do you expect president biden will take in this critically important video conference call with putin tomorrow? i think president biden is going to bring a pretty clear warning with him because the white house is hoping that russia will de-escalate here. while they don t believe president putin has made a decision to invade ukraine that it s looking like they could. if they wanted to, president putin could given you see u.s. troops surrounding three sides of ukraine. so that will be the approach that the white house is taking. the u.s. is taking during this conversation tomorrow. but i think president biden and president putin come at this with very diffe
ukraine. how wary is the biden administration of being dragged into a potential military conflict in light of a potential russian invasion? very wary, wolf. diplomacy is really something that this president, this administration is trying to turn to. and they hope work. so they re going to present a series of diplomatic alternatives. those include putting a financial squeeze on russia as well through the international financial system as well. there is no appetite here for military intervention. on a briefing earlier with a senior administration official, there was several moments of silence when that question was asked about a military solution to all of this. does the u.s. have the stomach for that? of course they re not ruling anything out, but they simply do not want to add another thing, which would be, you know, a significantly dangerous thing to the plate of this biden administration which is already quite full. so they hope diplomacy works in some respects but they see the
age 98. this afternoon we learned that dole will lie in state in the u.s. capitol rotunda on thursday. right now flags are flying at half-staff in honor of dole following an order from president biden. i m dana bash in for jake tapper. our coverage continues now with wolf blitzer in the situation room. happening now president biden is tested by two of his most powerful foreign adversaries. we re getting new information about his high-stakes video call with vladimir putin tomorrow. and the red lines that are being drawn. this as china is threatening to retaliate for a new u.s. diplomatic boycott of the beijing olympics. also new covid-19 requirements as u.s. cases, deaths and hospitalizations are all on the rise. will the upward trend be impacted by stricter travel
rules that are now taking effect? and an expansion of new york city s vaccine mandate. and the trump-fueled split in the republican party is worsening in georgia. an ousted u.s. senator and ally of the former president is now running against the top trump target. the state s gop governor. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. let s go straight to the white house and our chief national affairs correspondent jeff zeleny who is joining us right now. president biden is facing very significant new tests with both russia and china. and there are now new developments unfolding on both fronts. update our viewers. the white house is announcing a boycott of the 2022 winter olympic games in beijing. not for athletes but for u.s. diplomats. they are simply not sending a delegation to beijing next year, calling out human rights abuses.