that january 6th could, in fact, turn violent. the question is, what did he actually do with that information? i want to bring in my panel, atima, president of omara strategy group and democratic strategist and charlie sykes editor-at-large of the bulwark and msnbc contributor and columnist. charlie, let me start with you on this one. it s interesting because if we take a listen to the statement that was made by kevin mccarthy, he says, and i repeat, i did not ask the president to resign. he actually might be telling the truth, because in that phone call, he said, my plan is, i m going to talk to this guy and i m going to tell him that he should resign. the question is whether or not he actually did that. did he actually have that conversation? did he have the chutzpah or whatever you want to call it to say that to the former president now? were you at all surprised by these recordings and what mccarthy said on them? well, i was surprised at the existence of these recordings.
endorsements could actually backfire on the gop. plus, canceling russia. wimbledon bans russian players from competition. but are they punishing the right people? opinion columnist dave joins me live to discuss why he thinks this is the wrong approach. we want to begin, though, with that breaking news from ukraine. secretary of state tony blinken and defense secretary lloyd austin are expected to visit tomorrow. that is according to president zelenskyy. and if true, they re going to be the highest level u.s. officials to visit the country since this war began. nbc news has not yet confirmed this claim. nbc s cal perry standing by for us in kyiv with more. so, cal, we re just learning this over the last few hours or so. of course, our folks on the ground, scrambling to get this confirmed. we re not getting any sort of real confirmation on our end. but we re taking the ukrainian president s word for it at this point. what do we know? reporter: yeah, i think it s unlikely we ll get
will not allow russian and belarusian players to compete this year because of russia s unprovoked aggression in ukraine. the decision has drawn immediate praise but also some pretty harsh condemnation from the sports world. in an op-ed on msnbc.com, sports writer dave writes this. this is horrible. even indefensible politics and one hell of a slippery slope, banning individual players because of the actions of their governments is a path rife with hypocrisy and pitfalls. and dave zirine is joining us now. great to talk to you. thanks for joining us on this. let me read for you a statement from wimbledon, saying, it was their, quote, responsibility to limit russia s global influence and avoid world war iii. that s paraphrasing it a bit, but nonetheless, what do you make of that? well, it s wrong for so many reasons, and let me please break down the most important one. and that s the fact that there are anti-war russian tennis players so you look at number
this. we can all feel so helpless in the face of such carnage and aggression that we re looking for things to say, we re against this and this is how we re against this. but this is not the way. and as you said, and as i wrote, it also sets one holy heck of a precedent against any country that any tournament disagrees with in terms of their actions and that could perhaps also boomerang pretty sharply around the united states. here s the thing, though, dave, and let me just play devil s advocate for a moment. if you think about the sanctions that have been level against russia in general, the people that it s hurting are not only these russian oligarchs and vladimir putin and his cronies surrounding him but it s also hurting the russian people, some of which don t agree with what s happening in ukraine and don t agree with their own president s decision to invade ukraine for no other reason but because of his ego. that said, it s still hurting them. this is what happens when it comes
i think that s a completely reasonable political position to take. but when you take it to the level of saying, this individual cannot compete because of what their country does, i mean, you could imagine other countries that have power in these various federations who say, look at the united states, look at iraq, look at afghanistan, look at the carnage they re in, why do we have a rule for russia and not the united states? i just think i m not advocating that as a political principle, i m saying that what we re doing is opening that up, that every athlete just by being born under a flag, no matter their opinions about what their country is doing, should thereby be punished collectively because of the actions of what far too often is a tiny minority. an incredibly valid point and a good one. dave zirine, thank you so much. i think we could talk about this for the entire show. we don t have time, sadly, today, but i thank you for weighing in with your really good piece. no proble