donald trump leads pennsylvania republicans, leaves pennsylvania republicans fuming while in georgia, the former president reportedly abandons his struggling pick for governor. good morning. and welcome to way too early. on this very busy friday, may 20th. i m jonathan lemire. there s still no winner in the pennsylvania republican senate primary this morning with state officials confirming to nbc news that there are nearly 9,000 votes left to count. the effects of former president trump s handling of this race and other primaries in the state are already being felt. and could hurt his political capital in the future. nbc news reports that exacerbated republicans in the state say the end result of promoting candidates with far right views with such intensive media coverage could boomerang in ways that damage both the party and trump s own chances should he run for president again in 2024. officials reporting that trump s endorsement of celebrity tv doctor mehmet oz, now in
bid to join the nato alliance. if that indeed goes through and if turkey signs off, tell us what that means for russia. well, it would mean, it could finally allow finland and sweden to join nato and that would mean once again russia has found that they ve been sort of hoisted by their own effort, their whole effort in ukraine, to try to fight against nato and try to push back nato s borders have actually worked against them. it has been completely against them in the same way that their questioning of ukrainian statehood has worked against them. their effort to try to take ukrainian and denazi fy ukraine has had the opposite effect and united the country and given the sense of nationhood a new lease on life. and we re seeing vladimir putin s demands to try to withdraw from the borders of russia, to try to extinguish the notion of ukrainian nationwide, all of this, this whole bloody campaign in ukraine, is actually
that was the last time that macron has seen putin until he met with him until moscow. what the palace sources say is that by then, he found himself opposite a man who was much changed. macron felt that putin was now on an ideological drift, no longer the man he had met in december of 2019. by saturday, putin was once again making televised remarks, referring to ukraine s leadership as a nasty or fascist regime, urging armed forces to seize power even as the jewish president was speaking to the world from kyiv and ukrainian forces and civilians were putting up stiff resistance. i think that this guy lost touch with reality, reality and realities. western european realities. ukrainian reality and even russian realities.
ally but not overreact and that s difficult to do. i should note, the biden administration has not escalated our talking in threat level. which seems to suggest that s because they think, and they re right. while we failed to deter putin from attacking ukrainian, he is not attacking us. he is evil but not suicidal. thank you. . while russian trams invade ukraine, in moscow, they re busy with their own crackdown. speaking out will get you arrested if not worse.
and the russian president that lasted 90 minutes. the call talks about the french insistence on de-escalation. the kremlin s readout is much more about putin insisting once again on the need to denazi-fy ukraine. it is important to keep talking but at the very least, what these phone calls provide is something of an insight into the mind of a man who has been remarkably difficult to read and whose mind the world right now would really like to understand a lot better. all right. melissa bell in paris with that report. thank you. let s discuss this with washington post columnist josh roggin. ambassador taylor, let me start with you. the former director of national intelligence under obama, james clapper, said something that reflected a conversation that is really going on as you know intensely among intelligence circles in the west right now. take a listen. i personally think he s