about it invasion, us troops arrived, the first appointment of us troops in support of nato are in poland with more expected to arrive in romania in the coming days to beef up a wall against vladimir putin. president biden warning russia and its president will face heavy sanctions if putin invades ukraine and while the administration continues to look for a diplomatic offramp senior officials admit the country is prepared if putin pulls the trigger. we are in the window. any day now russia could take military action against ukraine or it could be a couple of weeks from now or russia could choose to take the diplomatic path. the key thing is that the united states needs to be and is prepared for any of those contingencies in lockstep with our allies. eric: we have coverage throughout the hour. steve is alive in ukraine s capital. first let s go to alexandra who is at the white house.
going to overthrow this government. i m convinced he s going to try to do that. that s the latest rather grim assessment from secretary of state antony blinken, as russia continues its multipronged assault on ukraine. the u.s., in turn, isn t just responding with sanctions but adding additional military moves as well, deploying another 7,000 u.s. troops from the united states to europe. let s get some perspective from the former u.s. defense secretary chuck hagel, the one who oversaw the defense department when russia invaded ukraine in 2014, took over crimea. just a few days ago, you expressed hope for a diplomatic offramp, and yet here we are now, ukraine in the middle of a full-scale russian invasion. what do you make of this moment? well, when we look back over the last two weeks and what the president has said, secretaries blinken and austin, what our intelligence has shown us that
if the united states does one thing with the north koreans, then the iranians look at that. so in both cases, he is protecting u.s. interests. in the case of iran, he s defending freedom of access in the waterway. in the case of north korea, he s deterring a war or a nuclear threat against the united states. but then he offers a diplomatic offramp. as long as the north koreans willing to engage on that, i think the president holds pressure where it is. but on the other hand, he s going to continue to put that pressure until the iranians adopt the similar option. but i think what s key here is the president cannot offer a sweetheart deal in north korea. he can t just say, okay, you can keep your nuclear weapons, don t worry about that, because the iranians will read that and know they can play him as well. mike: james carafano, fascinating discussion. thanks so much for your time. thanks for having me. arthel: let s go back to new orleans and dip into the 25th annual essence festival.