0 >> i thought it was pitch perfect too. so often you see images of war and it's easy to forget you're talking about a society, a culture of people. what a beautiful moment. >> beautiful moment for a very sad place right now, what we're talking about on the show tonight. thank you so much. see you soon. tonight, on the mehdi hasan show, in an unprecedented move, vladimir putin puts russian nuclear deterrent forces on high alert, but what is it about this man that brings thout worst in some people and the best in others? we'll ask yale university historian timothy snyder. plus, the former prime minister of finland, alexander stubbs, joins me to talk about putin's threat to his country, plus, pramila jayapal joins me for a preview of president biden's first ever state of the union speech. >> good evening. i'm mehdi hasan. as the capital city kyiv begins another night of fending off an air assault and the advance of russian troops, ukraine and russia have agreed to hold negotiations on the border of ukraine and belarus. with security guaranteed by belarus's autocratic president, putin ally alexander lukashenko. but tensions continue to escalate. in a first for the post-cold war era, putin has put his nuclear forces on high alert, a move that the u.s. called totally unacceptable. the russian president blamed aggressive statements from the west. but i want to start the show tonight by asking an important question. what is it about vladimir putin that brings out the best and the worst in people? and when i say worst in people, this is what i mean. >> can we give a round of applause for russia? yes. absolutely. absolutely. >> as you can tell by the american accented english, that didn't take place in st. petersburg, russia. it took place about two hours down the street from st. petersburg, florida, as a far right white nationalist conference, and any time you wonder why are you amplifying them at the top of the show? as you can see there, members of the house of representatives. two sitting members of the gop caucus, in fact, paul gosar and marjorie taylor greene, spoke at that conference. greene, the firebrand from georgia, is now claiming she didn't know the conference was organized by a white nationalist, which is nonsense. we know the gazpacho gestapo lady is dumb, but she's not that dumb. it also doesn't help greene's case that the idaho lieutenant governor also spoke at the conference. doesn't help the republican party, to be honest. look, it's not just me calling the organizer a white nationalist. you know, the can we give a round of applause to russia guy. that's how the anti-defamation colleague and the southern poverty law center both describe him. he jokes about holocaust denial and happily deploys the n-word. he attended the deadly unite the right white nationalist rally in charlottesville in 2017, and last month, he was subpoenaed by the house january 6th committee who want to question him about his alleged role in the insurrection. this is the guy who republicans are cozying up to in the midst of an international crisis, a war against our ally. but look, i don't want to give the impression that it's just nick fuentes who is embracing putin even as the authoritarian russian leader continues his unprovoked invasion of ukraine. earlier this week, former president donald trump called putin's invasion genius. trump's secretary of state, mike pompeo talked about how much respect he has for putin, calling him very shrewd and elegantly sophisticated. and tucker carlson, on his show this week, the tv dinner fortune guy, questioned why americans should dislike putin at all. in fact, tucker carlson has been boosting vladimir putin for months now. scratch that, he's actually been a putin cheerleader for years. >> the conflict between ukraine and russia. why shouldn't i root for russia, which i am? >> hot air from u.s. conservatives isn't just propaganda here. it's propaganda in russia, where state tv is proudly playing tucker carlson and mike pompeo's commentaries as proof of how the american right is onboard with russia's illegal invasion. that is dangerous. that really matters. look, you can be anti-american intervention in ukraine. you can be anti-war, without being pro-putin. those who oppose the iraq war were not pro-saddam. what makes the american right's weird love-in with the putin regime so odious right now is thousands of russians are risking their lives to stand up to putin and his war. the russian president may have brought out the worst in the american right, but he's bringing out the best in some of his own people. like russian tennis player andre ruplev who wrote no to war on the camera lens after winning his match on friday. his doubles partner is ukrainian. the daughter of putin's own spokesperson of ten years standing, she posted an anti-war message on her instagram stories. a young woman in moscow who was arrested for hanging a no to war sign on his balcony skrx the thousands of russians protesting against their own government invasion of ukraine, and more than 5,000 of them have been arrested or detained. putin is being opposed at home and abroad. take a look at the size of the crowds that gathered in berlin to protest the war today. and in the uk, and in portugal, and in south korea, and in argentina, and in france, and in bulgaria, and in spain, and in the nether lnldz, and in israel, and in japan, and in italy, and in belgian, and in thailand, and in greece, and here in washington, d.c., too. and across ukraine's western border in poland. should we be surprised? how can we not be inspired by the incredible images of bravery out of ukraine, as citizens from mere teenagers to men and women who should be enjoying their retirement are now taking up arms to fight for their country's freedom and independence. or by ukrainian president who when offered a chance by the u.s. to evacuate, replied i need ammunition, not a ride. every one of these people is a profile in courage. and while large parts of the world are finally coming together to call out russian fascism, here at home, our own american conservatives are going full fascist themselves. for more on this, let's turn to historian timothy snyder who teaching the history of central and eastern europe and the holocaust at yale university. he's also the author of the road to unfreedom. tim, thanks for coming back on the show. before we come to the shameful antics of our republican lawmakers here in the u.s., what is going on with vladimir putin? you have studied the man for years. how concerned should we be about his nuclear saber rattling today? >> putin has been in power for about half of his adult life. and so when you get to this kind of late stage tyranny, you are really in literary or psychological territory. not just rational or strategic territory. and it's clearly the case that mr. putin is less tactical than he was eight years ago when he invaded ukraine the first time. and much more idealogical, much more concerned with grander goals, much more concerned with how he's going to be remembered after he's gone. that said, when he speaks about nuclear weapons, i think this should be understood as one more attempt to get us psychologically upset, to push us onto the back foot so we do something ourselves which we don't really want to do. >> yes. and in terms of what we don't want to do, we don't want this war to keep escalating. we want this war to be over, both the ukrainian and russian governments have agreed to beat at the border of belarus. isn't the reality despite the amazing, inspiring achievems of the ukrainians in pushing back russian forces in recent days, they are still the much weaker party and they're the ones who are going to have to make the bigger compromised to avoid further bloodshed? >> i think we should stop on that point and just remind ourselves that a few days ago, everybody east and west expected the ukrainian state to fold up within a few hours. and it did not. and regardless of how this turns out, i think we should pause on the point you just made, which is that the president of ukraine and the people of ukraine have not just done something unexpected. they have done something inspiring. in fact, they have shown americans, if we're paying attention, what it looks like to care about your country and what it looks like to put down your internal divisions when something very important is happening outside. so it's up to the ukrainians what kind of compromises they're going to make. i think in the meantime, it's up to us to help them. >> 100% agree it is up to ukraine. my worry is that as the world watches and cheers them on, we get to a point where they are losing lives, i mean, i look at syria, tim. hundreds of thousands of syrians, brave syrians, died fighting assad. assad is still president, the world has moved on, and obviously, none of us want that to happen in ukraine. you're right to say it's their decision and they have been inspiring. you and i talked earlier this week on my peacock show about vladimir putin's propaganda that ukraine is not a real country or independent state. isn't it ironic that his invasion has made ukraine as a country more famous and admired the world over than ever before, where civic nationalism in ukraine has gotten a shot in the arm from their heroic defense of their cities and their frankly heroic president, volodymyr zelenskyy. >> there's deep irony here. mr. putin wants ukraine to be close to russia, but he invaded in 2014, thereby solidifying the ukrainian nation and turning them toward the west. the second more violent invasion in 2022 has created the situation where ukrainians basically have no choice but to defend themselves. it is really striking how europe and america and the world have seen in this an example of the weak standing up to the strong. the democrat standing up to the tyrants, and people showing just basic decency and courage, no matter what their background, no matter where they're coming from. this is in a sense the ultimate defeat of mr. putin's values or his lack of values. we'll remember there were people who stood for something as opposed to people who stood for nothing. >> yes indeed. so on that note, you have been calling out not just the putin threat for years but also the threat to democracy here at home from the american right. what do you make of republican lawmakers attending a conference at the weekend organized by a holocaust denier and where the crowd chanted putin, putin. >> yeah, i mean, first of all, for those of you who don't spend all your time following mr. putin, it's important to understand that he is the center of attention of the worldwide far right. he is the person not just in the united states, but around the world, idol, the icon of white nationalism. his association with holocaust denial or holocaust minimization is no accident. that's where he is politically. the very form his invasion takes where he claims to be fighting neonazis when actually his mission is to kill a jewish president, democratically elected, shows he's trying to pervert and undermine the very values we might draw from the second world war, so it's not surprising. this is where mr. putin stands. he stands with those sorts of people. >> he does, and then you've got the people here in the u.s. who have been jumping around going from praising putin to suddenly when they see the way the tide is turning, they're now praising zelenskyy. former president trump was praising zelenskyy on saturday. at the cpac conference, having praised putin earlier. tucker carlson was suddenly taking a stand on the republican line, we must defend ukraine. how about mike pompeo and what he had to say? >> in the last 14 months, we have seen a russian dictator now terrorize the ukrainian people because america didn't demonstrate the resolve we did for the four years prior. >> first of all, tim, i don't know what resolve the trump administration showed that mike pompeo is talking about, and suddenly they're all pulling their punches. they could teach a course on hypocrisy, these guys. >> that's what i mean about the difference of people who stand for something and the people who stand for nothing. the people who stand for nothing can turn on a dime. but there's one more irony there. on the trump administration, it was trump's foreign policy to bully volodymyr zelenskyy. that was the first time trump was impeached, his attempt -- his failed attempt to bully zelenskyy and to deny him the very arms when the ukrainians need now to hold back russia. >> last quick question, tim. as the ukrainians stand up to authoritarianism from russia, is there any coming back from the growing authoritarian turn in the u.s. by the grand old party, if we can ever call it that again? >> that's just as there are important things that have to be sorted out in russia by russians, there are important things that have to be sorted out in the republican party by republicans, but all of the cynics and the nihilists aside, i would like to say i do see a glimmer of hope in the conversations between democrats and republicans that have been enabled by this crisis. and i do see a glimmer of a possibility that the very depth of this crisis might give people of goodwill a chance to think about what it really means to belong to a country as opposed to frivolously worshiping someone who is a dictator somewhere else in a country where you know absolutely nothing. >> well said. tim snyder, we'll have to leave it there. thank you as ever for your analysis. >> next, i ask former finland prime minister alexander stub whether he thinks his country should join nato now in light of putin's aggression in ukraine. his answer after this short break. don't go anywhere. don't go anyw. meets verizon 5g ultra wideband. ultra-collaborative. ultra-secure. when you buy one, get up to $1,000 on another. verizon is going ultra, so your business can too.