the time is that what happened right before mccarthy said that, right before mccarthy said trump was being paid by putin, he and speaker paul ryan had just come out of talks with the prime minister of ukraine who was visiting washington. this is in 2016. kevin mccarthy and paul ryan, apparently met separately with the prime minister of ukraine, it wasn t even a single meeting they both had with him, but even so he in both meetings the ukrainian prime minister reportedly made a point of telling each of those republican leaders in congress about sophisticated propaganda tactics that the russians were using to mess with ukraine. specifically they described to them how russian had found all sorts of sophisticated covert ways to support specific populist politicians that russia believed could weaken ukraine s government, could weaken ukraine s democracy and thereby benefit russia was was trying to
formerly clinching the nomination. for that reason alone, this headline was kind of a double take thing. stunning that one of the top guys in leadership, one of the most powerful elected officials in the republican party, was going around saying out loud, at that time, that he was pretty sure that this guy who is about to be the republican party s nominee for president, he was on putin s payroll. but what made kevin mccarthy s more unsettling, potentially even more explosive, was the context in which he made those remarks. with the washington post reported at the time, was that what happened right before mccarthy said that, right before mccarthy said that trump was being paid by putin, he and speaker paul ryan had just come out of talks with the prime minister of ukraine. who is visiting washington. again, this is in 2016. sorry, kevin mccarthy and paul ryan reportedly met separately
who is visiting washington. again, this is in 2016. kevin mccarthy and paul ryan apparently met separately with the prime minister of ukraine, it wasn t even a single meeting they both had with him. even so, in both meetings, the ukrainian prime minister made it apparently made a point of telling each of those republican leaders in congress about sophisticated propaganda tactics that, the russians were using to mess with ukraine. specifically, he described to them how russia had found all sorts of sophisticated, covert ways, to support specific populist politicians that russia believed could weaken ukraine s government. good weekend ukraine s democracy, and thereby benefit russia, which was trying to undermine ukraine. the ukrainian prime minister, in those meetings with paul ryan and kevin mccarthy, he told those republican members of congress that the kremlin had been, quote, financing people in our governments to undo our governments. that was the conversation that house speaker pau
senior ukrainian official who was visiting washington. he said, we have to think about the possibility that this isn t going to be temporary. in other words, this crisis is going to go a long time. you ll have russian forces on the border, occasionally launching missiles, staing provocations, making cyberattacks, but staying there. it is possible we ll have, for the first time since the soviet union, russian troops in belarus, which will be permanently stationed there. significant change for belarus. you ll have ukraine ringed by russian forces for a long time. essentially at the point of russian blackmail. putin loves this. this is putin s moment. he s got everybodyanxious. he delights in producing the
yeah, the west wing at the highest levels is really heartened by where they feel nato is today. we, of course, saw four years from donald trump threatened to pull it apart. at one moment, i was there in brussels where he threatened to storm out and pull united states out of that alliance. and now, you know, president biden has had to reassure some skeptical members that they can count on the united states again and there is a sense in the administration that putin s saber rattling has unnerved europe to the point where they have realized they need each other again. they need nato. and that they are tighter now than they were, and even germany had been sort of the holdout to the frustration of some in biden s world, and but yet, in the last week or so, with the new chancellor visiting washington and now in moscow, they feel like he germany is on board as well, despite, obviously, the energy commitment they have with russia. so, they are hopeful of this.