desperate that he could reach for a nuclear weapon. and then, potentially, it s a whole new war. i mean, that is the fear, isn t it? he is as we mentioned very frustrated because he just can t win at each turn, ukraine has come out on top. so talk to us about the consequences on the ground if putin decides to use nuclear weapons and talk to us about the move in terms of what the west need to do. you see nato coming in to this. we are talking world war iii here? firstly what we need to do here in the west is strengthen deterrents against putin making that initial use of nuclear weapons. that is absolutely crucial. the biden administration has been engaged in back channel discussions with moscow to make it clear if he uses nuclear weapons, it would be absolutely catastrophic consequences for russia. but maybe we need to be a
the joint chief chairman s actions. you heard gjim talking about this. is it appropriate to reportedly review the nuclear weapons processes with the chinese and try to reassure the counter part the u.s. would not strike, the back channel discussions going on? based on what we know, yes, totally appropriate and i completely agree with jim sciutto characterization. this was a red phone conversation. it is timely. given the manic behavior that donald trump was engaged in after the election defeat everybody has cause to be worried and not acknowledging that is a significant omission from the record during those final days of the trump administration and i think the fact that the chairman of the
no ucmj, uniform code of military justice command authority. and that is the kind of issue where you could make the argument that he overstepped his bounds, but he really did the right thing in this case. if all of this reporting is correct, he needed to step in to preserve the country and to preserve our relationships and frankly, preserve the military forces that we have. speaking of relationships to that other detail that jamie reported about milley reportedly holding these back channel discussions with his chinese counterpart who is worried about the chaos in washington, how extraordinary is that? very extraordinary. you know, when we think of other countries or adversaries like china and, you know, in the popular mind, somebody like the chairman of the joint chiefs never talks to these people. the real story is they talk to them a lot. sometimes they talk to them all the time. it all depends on the personal relationships that the chairman
is. i m worried they won t revisit. the back channel discussions with d.o.d. white house, state, dhs officials they are defensive and bureaucratic and i wonder if that i remember why they entered public service. they make the mistakes and then being told the information you have is wrong. look at what david described as something we saw over and over again last night. the problem is the pentagon s not acknowledging basic problems such as the taliban are continuing along with the curfew that was set up by the afghan government. so you have people told to get to the airport and need to get there in the middle of the night or early morning but the taliban have a curfew. i don t understand i hate to make this vietnam analogy but reminds me about the 5:00
hand from other people. there s nothing wrong with that. people get convicted on hearsay evidence all the time, everyday in u.s. courts. it s very important for people to remember this is only part of that story and the rest of it is going to come from some of the other witnesses. this is incredibly significant in part because guiliani s name did come up in that phone call between president trump and president zelensky, zelensky saying his staff met with guiliani. this is a career diplomat, this is what rudy guilliani was up to. this is not rudy guilliani purely freelancing, this is a situation the president of the united states is actively explicitly openly pressuring foreign leaders to meet with guiliani. now, we have officials explaining what guiliani was up to was digging up dirt. wolf, think about this. in the 1970s, when the united states wanted to open up to china and there was some back channel discussions happening with the chinese about how to do that, it was part of a la