alaska. i think tony blinken s response was exactly right. we can argue it until the cows come home about nato enlargement, whether 2008 was a mistake, i think it was. as amy said to put ukraine in a gray zone, not moving in that direction. but this is about sovereignty and this is about respect for boards, not to change them by military force. and vladimir putin s ambition to create a legacy. there s any rule, you don t change borders by force. saddam hussein learned that in 1981, vladimir putin cannot be allowed get away with this and that s where rand paul was way off base with this. and a prominent fox news host in the early days of the war said he was rooting for russia. back to the idea of peace talks, there s been talks in the last couple of days. they say, of course, the biden administration would love the shooting stopped as soon as possible.
to a safer space. it would also, though, as raf suggested, free up so many russian fighters to go eat into the donbas. and actually fight the fight that vladimir putin claims is the reason he invaded ukraine in the first place. one more example of vladimir putin strategically doing the wrong thing. makes no sense. let s bring in right now, a member of the intelligence and armed services committee independent senator angus king of maine. also u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay, and nbc news contributor mike king mike barnicle. mike is the king. he is the legend. whatever you want to describe. we ll come to you, senator king. senator, before we talk about what s going on in russia, i d love for you to reflect on madeleine albright. i know you knew her very well.
into your decision to step aside today? well, that wasn t helpful. oh, back in 2015. kevin mccarthy lost his shot at becoming house speaker, after admitting the benghazi committee was driven by partisan politics. seven years later, he s at it again. this time, caught on tape, telling the truth about fringe members of his own caucus. is the gavel slipping through his fingers once again? plus, shocking new numbers on what types of allegations republican voters would consider to be a major problem for a candidate. turns out, anti-semitic, racist or homophobic remarks would be a problem for many of them is that shocking? and breaking news overnight, on the war in ukraine, russia cuts off gas supplies to poland and bulgaria, seen as a retaliation for the west s new pledge to keep supplying weapons
from foreign minister lavrov in a second. if you talk about weakening russia in terms of the conventional force that essentially means that russia is going to become more, not less reliant on use of nuclear weapons. it s interesting during the cold war, think about it, we had conventional inferiority on our part. we adopted a document, we would use arms first use of them, in order to competence tate for our conventional military inferiority. if we have an expressed policy of weakening russia in terms of military forces overall, that is simply going to mean, in order to remain a great power, russia has to put more, not less reliance on nuclear weapons. we just need to think that through. again, i m sitting back here watching all of this, and i m surprised at what seems to be the extension of our aim, expansion of our aims, both in ukraine, what we re prepared to do militarily and more broadly. i m just saying, let s take,
let s talk less. let s not be so aggressive in our rhetoric, let s just be purposeful in our policy. we ve got a couple of thing, amy mckenon, first of all, american diplomats headed to ukraine, the conference in germany about weapons. the shift in rhetoric by lloyd austin, especially on the part of the americans toward the word winning. but on the other side, we ve got russian moves into moldova, specifically transnitsia, and what is that and clint will back us with the map. it s been a big week. with the shifts in war and where this is heading of course, russia s efforts in moldova. and a sliver of breakaway land east in moldova. the moldovan foreign minister