absent from the global event is the russian president vladimir putin, putin did not attend the g20 summit in rome over the weekend. joining us now to discuss is fiona hill the former top russia adviser for president trump, and the author of the new book there is nothing for you here. fiona, thanks so much for joining us. as you know, putin skipping trips to the g20 in rome, now the climate summit in glasgow. what is this calculation for sitting all this out? well i think the biggest calculation, wolf, is the pandemic, because if putin leaves right now, it s sending a bad signal at home. russia actually has its highest infection and mortality rates from the coronavirus, highest than any other point in the last couple of years. so this is really quite a test for him on the home front. so i think there was no choice really about whether he stayed or came to gloss gao but of course in his absence there s going to be a lot of scrutiny
potentially could have life and death impact on millions and millions of people around the world. so it s critical right now for all of this to develop. the question is, what are they going to achieve? are they going to get the job done? there s a lot of skepticism. they had the g20 summit in rome. they have to make a whole lot more important decisions. but the u.s. wants to take the leadership role in all of this. one of the key problems, some of the major polluters, china, russia, saudi arabia, they have sent delegations here. but certainly not the leaders. they re not going to be here. president putin is not going to be here. president xi of china isn t going to be here. they want face-to-face talks. they didn t have cop 26 because of the covid-19 pandemic. about 20,000 delegates are now
realizes senator manchin has not yet expressed his support behind this plan. that was something president biden was hoping to get before he came to the g20 summit in rome but to this major climate summit. it does reveal something about what happened last night during a press conference that we had with president biden where he was leaving the room and we asked the president whether or not he had gotten the sign-off from senator manchin and senator sinema on this $1.75 trillion plan, jake. as he was leaving the room he flashed a thumbs up to the reporters when we asked that question twice and, of course, later the white house walked that back saying that the president was just saying he feels like the bill is moving in a good direction. wasn t saying explicitly those two had signed on and clearly we know why because senator manchin made clear today he has not signed off on that. thank you. let s discuss with my panel. laura, how big of a road block is this for the democrats? i reall
with a plan. your night the white house released a five point strategy for reaching net zero emissions in the u.s. for 2050. key here, moving to 100% clean electricity by 2035. switching over to electric cars. helping americans transition from old, wasteful appliances. super pollutants like those found in air conditioners and refrigerators and scaling up carbon removal through expanding forests and grasslands. international approach to his climate crisis is strong and he was encouraged by this weekend s g20 summit in rome. everyone sought me out. they wanted to know what our views were and we helped lead. we got significant support here. significant support. we re the most the united states of america is the most critical part of this entire agenda. this summit comes at a critical time.