trying to keep track of everybody who is trying to protest and come out against this unprovoked attack by russia on ukraine. first let s go to mike memoli at the white house for us where administration officials are reacting to the dramatic escalation from vladimir putin. as we promised, keir, we ll be talking about this. mike, what is the white house saying about it? reporter: alex, as you can imagine, the white house is monitoring every comment coming from the russian president and every russian military move. we re hearing from a senior military official and from our colleague courtney kube that there is no reason to doubt that vladimir putin has put the nuclear forces on alert but they re calling it escalating and unnecessary. they point out that the russians maintain significant military capabilities they haven t deployed yet. roughly two-thirds of the
concerning military escalation on the part of the russians, we continue to see greater diplomatic alignment on the part of the united states and our allies. japan is joining the rest of the g7 countries in blocking russian banks from the s.w.i.f.t. messaging system. we heard from the u.s. ambassador to the united nations this morning, linda thomas-greenfield, indicating that the u.n. security council is poised to do something it hasn t done very often, in fact only ten times in its history, voting to convene a special session of the entire u.n. general assembly here on this matter of international concern. this would be a significant move because russia, as one of those permanent members of the security council, would not be able to block that move. so we re continuing to see, in addition to these defensive steps, sanction steps that the u.s. potentially is continuing to rally our allies for potential further steps down the road. thank you, from the white
i have no words. okay, thank you very much to you, vaughn hillyard, you re getting an earful there at cpac in orlando. joining me now, don callaway, democratic strategist and founder of the national voter protection action fund. susan del percio, republican analyst, and david jolly, former congressman from florida and an msnbc political contributor. can i ask you to comment on what we heard, susan, from donald trump there? i mean, maybe you can articulate something better than what i had going on in my mind, because, mm-mm, couldn t say it on tv. and i ll be careful because we re on tv, you know me, alex. you know how i really feel. donald trump s words, seriously, were dangerous, not only irresponsible but dangerous. they re being used by russian propaganda. he does not care. the former president has never cared nor does he currently care about this country or about other countries. he only worries about himself
house, mike memoli. nbc s cal perry is joining us from lviv, ukraine. cal, both sides have agreed now to talk? what do we know about it? reporter: look, it was early this morning when we started to hear that the russians were possibly open for discussions. we heard from ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy saying it was a nonstarter, when the talks were going to be in belarus. the russians helped stage some of their attacks from belarus. belarus is seen as a satellite state for the russians already. so zelenskyy said that s a nonstarter. a few hours later it came out that they would meet along a river that divides the two countries. the ukrainian president said he would send a delegation. highly unlikely that he will be a part of that delegation. this man has become not just the face of ukraine but the face of resistance against the russians.
they made that quest to meet, and frankly people were quite skeptical about it, to be honest, clearly the idea that they would meet in belarus just seemed so unlikely. and the ukrainians, understandably, saying, well, why would we go there when they re a part to this conflict. as cal is setting out, they seem to have found some kind of neutral ground. but again, talking to one former official with close ties, close contacts inside the kremlin, his view, i was speaking to him earlier today, is that, to be honest, this is kind of russian trolling, as he described it. you pose as if you want to negotiate because you re trying to manage the message, but actually you re not really that interested in negotiating. the other thing to point out is that there have been negotiations. there were multiple talks with world leaders running up to this. and we know what the fundamental demands from russia are and