CHUCK TODD:
This Sunday: Russia widens the war.
UKRAINIAN MAN:
Big columns of Russian vehicles just – in our houses.
CHUCK TODD:
Russia closing in on Kyiv and expanding its onslaught to the west, where refugees have fled amid fears that it may be planning chemical or biological attacks.
AMB. SERGIY KYSLYTSYA:
What is next? Ammonia? Phosphorous? And what will be the next target?
CHUCK TODD:
Russian forces turn their guns on civilians –
UKRANIAN WOMAN:
Every night we heard very horrible sounds every night.
CHUCK TODD:
– flattening neighborhoods and even targeting a maternity hospital –
SERGIY ORLOV:
I can not realize why it's necessary for Russian troops to destroy hospital.
CHUCK TODD:
– then denying it. We'll get a report from Kyiv. I'll talk to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and we'll bring together experts on defense, diplomacy and Russia to discuss how the U.S. can help Ukraine. Plus, one-on-one with Bill Barr.
BILL BARR:
The narrative was I was a toady to Trump and I would do Trump's bidding, and the media constantly went out with that story.
CHUCK TODD:
I'll talk to Donald Trump's former Attorney General about his final days in office. Joining me for insight and analysis are: New York Times Pentagon Correspondent Helene Cooper, Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, Kimberly Atkins Stohr, senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe, and New York Times Chief White House correspondent Peter Baker. Welcome to Sunday. It's Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history. This is Meet the Press with Chuck Todd.
CHUCK TODD:
Good Sunday morning. I hope you can get that extra hour of sleep at some point today. As Russia's hopes of a lightning-quick victory have evaporated, it's shifted instead to shooting at people who can't shoot back. Consider these lasting images of Russia's war of choice: a mother, her two children, and a family friend lying dead in the street, struck down as they simply ran for safety. And then there’s this: Babies and pregnant women being evacuated from a maternity hospital after it was targeted by Russia. Russia continued its onslaught, closing in on Kyiv and now hitting western cities, including an attack overnight at a military training center near Lviv, that was just some 15 miles from the border with Poland, a NATO ally. Ukrainian forces are hitting back, attacking that convoy outside of the capital. But in the besieged city of Mariupol, where mass graves are being dug, there's no food, no water, and no way out right now. And there are increasing concerns that Russia may use chemical or biological weapons as a way to target insurgents hiding in basements, even as it accuses Ukraine of planning such an attack. But as Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, "If you want to know Russia's plans, look at what Russia accuses others of." So is Vladimir Putin really looking for an off ramp? If so, what kind of deal can you make to end a war with a country that won't even admit there is a war? In a moment, I'm going to bring you my interview with National Security Advisor to President Biden Jake Sullivan, but we're going to begin with our chief former correspondent Richard Engel, who's in Kyiv. And Richard, President Zelenskyy yesterday described Russia's assault now as a new stage of terror. What is he saying?
RICHARD ENGEL:
Well, it feels like we are at a new phase of this war. That initially, the attacks by Russia were in the East and in the South there was some speculation that Russia might try and do a lightning campaign and then sue for some sort of peace deal. But negotiations, however, have gone nowhere. And now Russia's adopting much more long-war tactics, besieging towns and cities in the South and in other places, and then carrying out these attacks in the West overnight, and also yesterday. The West of this country is still open. It is still open to Eastern Europe, and that has been an active supply line, bringing in weapons from Eastern Europe into this country, particularly American weapons, those javelins that have been so effective against Russian armored vehicles. And now with this strike overnight on the training base that killed at least 35 people, according to the local governor, and injured more than 100, it seems that Russia's saying that nothing is off limits, and it is trying to limit those supply of shoulder-fired stingers, javelins and other kinds of weapons that have been flowing into this country. Also, watch what's going on in the South, another indication that Russia's going for a long war. The Russians are now trying to set up their occupation in a more permanent way, even though there have been protests against the Russian presence in the city of Melitopol, which Russian controls. Russian forces replaced the mayor and appointed a Russian agent. And local officials worry that Russia is going to hold some sham referendum to make its political occupation more permanent.
CHUCK TODD:
Hey Richard, I'm concerned about the strike in the West. I know you had an interview over the weekend with a U.S. military veteran, not active duty, we don't have any active-duty U.S. military in the country, but he's of Ukrainian descent. He's an American citizen and he was training for the fight to help Ukrainians against the Russians. We could have a number of American citizens in country fighting the Russians right now. Perhaps they were targeted in that strike, correct?
RICHARD ENGEL:
It's possible. And I've met several Ukrainian-Americans who are here, who volunteered, who are heading toward the front lines, or are here in this city. So as this war continues and continues to escalate, it is very possible you're going to have dual-nationals, Americans. That was sort of explosion. And again, it sounds like it's pretty far away, but close to Kyiv just now. So yes, it is possible that you could have foreign nationals, including Americans, caught up in the violence. Likely, I would say.
CHUCK TODD:
Richard Engel with the reminder in the background there that this is an active war zone. Richard, thank you. And joining me now is President Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan. Jake, welcome back to Meet the Press.
JAKE SULLIVAN:
Thanks for having me, Chuck.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to see your reaction overnight to what has happened with shelling now in the west, that military training facility that was hit. A missile may have struck 15 miles from the Polish border. Has any of this escalation into trying to destroy supply lines, indiscriminate bombing in the west, has this changed the president's calculus at all about things like a no-fly zone or things like that?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
Well, Chuck, Chuck, the American president has been clear for some time now that there are no U.S. troops currently operating in Ukraine, in eastern Ukraine or in western Ukraine, and that we will defend every inch of NATO territory, but U.S. forces will not engage Russian forces inside Ukraine. That remains true today. It remains true on the ground and in the sky. But what we will do is increase and intensify our efforts to supply the Ukrainian defenders with the weapons and security assistance they need to defend themselves. And just yesterday, the president approved an additional $200 million of military assistance to flow rapidly into Ukraine and we're coordinating the efforts of our allies and partners to do the same thing.
CHUCK TODD:
Is there going to be any sort of necessity to have a military escort for that aid? I mean, if it – if they're now going to bomb supply lines and Russia said any of this is fair game in their mind, how are you going to protect the aid that we're sending in to make sure the aid gets in the hands of the Ukrainians and, say, doesn't end up accidentally in the hands of the Russians?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
Well, I want to be very careful on your program or on television at all in terms of talking about the operational details of those supply lines and the means by which those weapons are getting to the front lines and into the hands of Ukrainian defenders. I will just say this, that yesterday, today and tomorrow, we are determined, and Ukrainians are determined, to ensure that anti-tank, anti-armor, anti-air capabilities, ammunition and other forms of assistance actually do make it to the front to blunt the Russian advance. And we've seen real success in that over the course of the past two weeks. It's no surprise that the Russians are trying to expand the number of targets in this war because they're frustrated by their lack of ability to take some of the major cities, by the fact that they are well behind the objectives they set for themselves and by the incredibly stiff and brave resistance that the people of Ukraine and the military of Ukraine, and ordinary citizens of Ukraine, are putting up. And we're going to continue to support those fighters as they fight.
CHUCK TODD:
The other major development of the week was this warning from western intelligence that Russia was preparing perhaps to use chemical or biological weapons. The president used the phrase severe price in reaction to what – what would – you know, what would happen if Russia did this. He said they'd pay a severe price. I assume these economic sanctions are a severe price. Can you define what that phrase means?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
I'm not going to, in public, lay out the specifics of the severe consequences that Russia would face were it to actually use chemical or biological weapons inside Ukraine. I will just say that the United States, in coordination with our allies and partners, is prepared to impose such severe consequences. And we have communicated that directly to the Russians. We have consulted with our allies and partners about it. And we are prepared for that eventuality. And part of the reason, Chuck, that we're so concerned that this may happen is that when Russia starts accusing other countries of potentially doing something, it's a good tell that they may be on the cusp of doing it themselves. What we are here to do is to deny them the capacity to have a false flag operation, to blame this on the Ukrainians or on us, to take away their pretext and to make the world understand that if chemical weapons are used in Ukraine, it is the Russians who will have used them. And the response will, as the president said, be severe.
CHUCK TODD:
So, you want strategic ambiguity here, meaning you want Putin to think the consequence could be anything?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
We want to be able to communicate directly to Russia, alongside our allies, what those consequences could be, but I do not want to sit in public and lay out every possible option available to the president, available to our allies to respond. We would prefer to do this directly through channels. And we think that puts us in the best position to deter it and the best position to respond should they actually move forward with a chemical attack.
CHUCK TODD:
Is there a severe economic consequence that we've not leveled against him yet?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
Well, you just saw, on Friday, the president, alongside of his fellow G7 leaders, announce a further round of economic sanctions to include cutting Russia off from large elements of the international trading system, denying the import of key Russian products to the United States, imposing a ban on luxury goods going to those oligarchs and cronies around Putin. That was the next step in an ongoing effort to continue to squeeze the Russian economy. And it's having an enormous impact. And there are additional steps that we will continue to take, additional targets of oligarchs that we are developing, additional measures to tighten the vice – the economic vice that we have put around the Russian economy. We'll continue to do that with our allies and partners and we will see the results. As we've seen, the Russian stock market hasn't opened in two weeks and they've just announced it won't open because, if it were to open, you would see an immediate cratering of the stock market showing just how much damage to the Russian economy has already occurred.
CHUCK TODD:
It – does China – or any Chinese businesses, or the Chinese government – are they going to be targeted with sanctions if they're seen as helping Russia get around ours?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
We have made it clear to not just Beijing, but every country in the world, that if they think that they can basically bail Russia out, they can give Russia a workaround to the sanctions that we've imposed, they should have another thing coming because we will ensure that neither China, nor anyone else, can compensate Russia for these losses. In terms of the specific means of doing that, again, I'm not going to lay all of that out in public, but we will communicate that privately to China, as we have already done and will continue to do.
CHUCK TODD:
I've got one more question for you about the issue of Venezuelan oil. I want to quote from Debbie Wasserman Shultz, a Democrat in south Florida. "Critically, neither this hostage release," referring to the hostages that were released by Venezuela – two American citizens, "nor Russia's invasion of Ukraine warrant allowing the murderous Maduro regime to quickly stockpile petrol profits as Venezuelans still starve for food, medicine, and basic human rights under his autocratic rule." Is the administration still pursuing some diplomatic engagement with Venezuela that would increase – that would put more oil into the market?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
What came out of the trip by U.S. officials to Venezuela last week was the release of two American citizens who are now home, reunited with their families. There are more Venezuelan, excuse me, American citizens still in Venezuela, heartbreakingly, who we are working around the clock to try to get out. And what I will tell you is this, Chuck, any sanctions relief that we provide, as was true in the last administration and is true in this administration, has to be tied to concrete steps that Maduro and the people around him take.
CHUCK TODD:
Do you still consider MIGs to be offensive weapons and not defensive weapons?
JAKE SULLIVAN:
The military, the Pentagon, sees the MIGs, the fighter jets, as offensive weapons, but the key thing here is that President Biden looked at the assessment of our intelligence community, took the advice of his military commanders, consulted with his NATO allies and ultimately determined that the cost-benefit analysis did not justify flying fighter planes from a U.S. base in Germany into contested airspace in Eastern Europe. But he also directed us to double down on our efforts to get the Ukrainians advanced capabilities that could achieve a similar purpose.
CHUCK TODD:
Jake Sullivan, the president's national security advisor. I know you're busy. I appreciate you spending a few minutes with us.
JAKE SULLIVAN:
Thanks for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
And once again, we've brought together experts to discuss the war in Ukraine and what options the U.S. has to help in the fight against Russia. Admiral James Stavridis is a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador of Russia. And also joining us is Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. She is also author of the new book Lessons from the Edge. Welcome back to the two of you, and welcome.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
In fact, I want to start with something you wrote in your book. And you write this: "We have failed to call out Russia's behavior in a way that Russia finds persuasive, or taken steps to stop it that Moscow finds compelling. If we continue to fumble around, we will someday, maybe soon, find ourselves in a serious confrontation in a context not of our choosing and not to our advantage." You obviously wrote this, I'm going to guess, sometime in the fall of '21.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
In the summer.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah. Here we are.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
Yeah. Yeah. Here we are, and I think that's what the history shows. Chechnya, Syria, Ukraine won in 2014, and now Ukraine in 2022. And so I think we need to – we say, "This fight is our fight," that this is a confrontation between freedom and tyranny. And so I think our – we've done a lot, but I think that our actions need to better match the rhetoric.
CHUCK TODD:
I had a Democratic congressman from Chicago, Mike Quigley, say to me, "You know, Ukrainians have earned it, the way they fought these first two weeks." He said, "They've earned our support at this point, because they are fighting our fight." And he was basically leaning into the idea of a no-fly zone of war like this. Is that where you are?
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
I think it deserves serious consideration. I think we need to look at the gamut of options that are out there for us. We need to calculate the risk and be smart about it. But I think there is also a risk when you're dealing with somebody like Putin of not responding boldly enough. Because he will take advantage of that. He senses fear.
CHUCK TODD:
Admiral Stavridis, let's talk about what you just heard there from Jake Sullivan. He said – and I want to get to the chemical weapons, severe consequences. Clearly, they want to create the ambiguity out there. What's realistic if they use this? What can or should we do?
ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS:
I think you have to, at that point, consider a no-fly zone, I think is a pretty logical next step. But I'll give you a halfway house. That would be going back to the idea of getting fighters in the hands of the Ukrainians. And I get all the puts and takes of that –
CHUCK TODD:
So you want Ukraine to do the no-fly zone. They would basically be the ones to do it, not NATO.
ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS:
Exactly.
CHUCK TODD:
Is that the goal in this?
ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS:
It is. And so what you would want to do is put fighters in their hands. And the way to do that, Chuck, would be to have Ukrainian pilots come to NATO, train briefly, and then fly those fighters back.
CHUCK TODD:
Why wasn't that the plan in the first place? It seemed the most logical way to do this, to be frank.
ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS:
It's unclear, but I have full respect for the way the administration has to navigate between our allies and the risks that the ambassador just pointed out. But I think to your question, what do we do if we see chemical weapons, which, by the way, I agree with Jake Sullivan when they mention it it's a tell. Watch for it to come from them. But what should we do? I think you go back to the idea of giving the Ukrainians the tools to implement a very serious no-fly zone. You know, Chuck, sometimes plan B is ‘work harder on plan A’. And I think this is one of those cases.
CHUCK TODD:
Hey, Mike, the fact that the Russians are having to bring in foreign fighters, to me, talk about a tell and a show of weakness. What message should that send to our folks? What should we be reading into this?
MICHAEL MCFAUL:
Well, obviously Putin's frustrated. He wouldn't need these people otherwise. And he's striking new cities because he's frustrated. And he looks frustrated on TV when he talks. This is not going the way he wanted to. And that says to our side, if you mean "our side" the American side, get into the fight to win. But the consequences here, as we were just talking about, this is not just about Ukrainian freedom. If we lose in Ukraine, we the liberal democratic world, that sends a powerful message to our competitors, autocratic competitors in the Middle East and Asia. And it makes our allies and partners in all of those regions nervous. So I – when I talk to the administration I say, "Hey, guys, A-plus for what you've done so far in terms of military assistance, sanctions, and fortifying our NATO allies. But this is just the midterm. You have homework to do."
CHUCK TODD:
And this is not midterm as in "the midterms."
MICHAEL MCFAUL:
No, no, I'm sorry.
CHUCK TODD:
Because it's a political show.
MICHAEL MCFAUL:
Speaking as professors.
CHUCK TODD:
I know. I hear that word, you mean midterm like the exam. I've got you, professor.
MICHAEL MCFAUL:
Well, but frankly, I think it affects the other midterms too, but that's your specialty, not mine. Which is to say I do not think a no-fly zone is the appropriate thing. I think that's a declaration of war, and we should just call it that, and then have the U.S. Congress, by the way, vote on it. That's their job. But anything short of that, we have no excuses but to provide it – give the Ukrainians what they need to fight this war. I just walked to Zelenskyy two days ago, and that's exactly what he said. He said, "You guys are standing on the sidelines. We got it. But give us the tools to win this war on the ground."
CHUCK TODD:
Ambassador, you shared in – with – one interview I saw, that you and President Zelenskyy didn't really see eye to eye at first, or perhaps he had bought into some of the caricatures and some of the stuff that was being said about you. Are you surprised by his resilience?
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
Yeah. I think that the man has really met the moment. He is a hero for all Ukrainians, uniting the country, inspiring them. And moreover, inspiring the rest of the world. It's remarkable.
CHUCK TODD:
While I have you here, I’ve got to ask. Threatening to withhold military, which is what got – the first impeachment, what made you a household name for a bit and why you had to testify before Congress, how much of that impacts what's happening today?
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
I think it certainly plays a part. I think Putin saw how Trump viewed Ukraine.
CHUCK TODD:
He just viewed it as a chip?
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
As a pawn. Yeah, as a pawn.
CHUCK TODD:
As a chip to negotiate.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
And I think that the release of that transcript showed the world that we had an administration that was ready to trade our national security for personal and political gain, when the president of the United States, of all people, should be working for all of us and our national security.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, I appreciate you coming in. I appreciate that you wrote the book. There's a lot for future foreign service officers to learn in this book. Not just – this isn't just about the Ukrainian impeachment. Anyway.
MARIE YOVANOVITCH:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Thanks very much. Thank you, Admiral Stavridis. Thank you, Ambassador McFaul. When we come back, how the war in the Ukraine is affecting politics, we got a little bit into it here, here in the United States. The panel is next.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back, panel is with us. New York Times Pentagon Correspondent Helene Cooper; New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker; Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review; and Kimberly Atkins Stohr, a senior opinion writer for The Boston Globe. Welcome to all of you. Helene, let me start with sort of your beat in the Pentagon. And we heard James Stavridis sort of say there's some plan Bs and plan Cs. And he said, "You know, the best plan B might be plan A." This feels like a week that could become consequential in whether we get involved or not, given the stakes that Russia seems to be raising here. What do you see?
HELENE COOPER:
I think each week so far has been increasingly consequential. And this week will be as much so. The Pentagon and the Biden administration at this point in time are still being extremely cautious, really, really deliberate, and they're still very focused on not escalating. Because at the end of the day, we need to – when we talk about things like getting involved, when we talk about things like putting in place a no-fly zone, it's clear. And Ambassador McFaul said this earlier, it's clear that we should be clear about what exactly we're saying. When we say, "Put in place a no-fly zone," what we're saying is, "Be willing to go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia, a country with more than 4,000 nuclear weapons over Ukraine." And be very clear. Maybe we make that decision that that's what we want to do. But the American people and politicians and everybody who is talking about this should be very, very crystal clear about exactly what we're saying. And if Russia did not have more than 4,000 nukes, we would've long since been in this war. But at the end of the day, this is what has sort of tied the administration's hands, while at the same time they're trying to be as forceful as they can on sanctions and on the economic side.
CHUCK TODD:
Peter, you were stationed in Moscow as a stint as a reporter. He has right now the control of the information system. But he's not going to be able to keep this idea that Ukraine's not going well away from his people for long. He could declare victory and go home if he wanted to right now. And his people would believe it. How much longer will his people believe something like that?
PETER BAKER:
Well, the problem for Putin isn't that he controls the media and he controls social media in some extent. He obviously controls the information space. At some point, if the Russians have lost six, 7,000 troops, that's six or 7,000 body bags that are coming home and six or 7,000 funerals in towns like Smolyn.
CHUCK TODD:
They can't hide those funerals.
PETER BAKER:
They cannot hide those. And what we saw during the Chechen war, when my wife and I were in Moscow, we saw the power of the mothers, right? "The soldiers' mothers," they were called. And they had political power even in an autocratic state. And that's a real problem for him. He could lose public rapport.
CHUCK TODD:
We know Gold Star Families have huge power here.
PETER BAKER:
Absolutely.
CHUCK TODD:
They have it there.
PETER BAKER:
And they're killing not just, you know, Chechens who are not particularly popular among Russians, they're killing Ukrainians, who were their Slavic brothers, as they see it. And that makes it even more volatile in a Russian political context.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, I want to tip a little bit to the political sort of impact of this. What's interesting here is Congress seems to be ahead of Biden. And the public vote for now seems to like what Biden's done, not necessarily Biden himself. I want to put up a few things. First, President Biden's decisions on Ukraine, this is some navigator research polling, nearly 60% believe he's made the right decisions. President Biden's handling of Ukraine, upside down. Nearly 50% disapprove of his handling of it, shows you, I think, the power of his personality. But Kimberly, I want to show you this. Congress really has sort of dragged Biden to some of the harsher sanctions against Russia. The ban on oil imports, Nord Stream 2, the Russian banks from SWIFT, increasing into Ukraine. Congress basically said, "Come on, Biden, do more." And they may end up dragging him to a no-fly zone.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
They may. I mean, we also have to be clear that the situation on the ground has changed day by day as well. So it may be Congress pushing the president, and also may be what's happening in Ukraine pushing the president to make these determinations. But what's interesting about this is we're calling this Congress dragging Biden. They're talking to each other. They're coming to a conclusion, and then they're acting. This is how government is supposed to work. It's supposed to be responsive, and it's probably one of the reasons we're seeing the positivity ratings going up for the president for his handling, putting aside the personal politics and looking at the actions right now. Right now, usually politics is about who we see as the enemy. Right now, we're unified. We see that Putin is the enemy and Congress is acting. And I think that that is important for the American people.
CHUCK TODD:
Rich there definitely is what I call the old Cold War bipartisan majority seems to be coming back.
RICH LOWRY:
Yeah, so it shows, for those of us who think Congress should be more forceful exercising its power, influence, and prerogatives, that when there's a bipartisan majority, you can't push a president. I think that distinction, that poll just seems odd, support his decisions, but you're not approving his handling. It just goes to the fact that this threat is not direct in the immediate enough for most Americans to get a rally-around-the-flag effect, but it does create a sense that things are out of control. And that just doesn't help a president. And Biden has been dragged down by that sense since the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
CHUCK TODD:
The Venezuela decision, that really, I think, blew back on him harder than he expected, didn't it?
PETER BAKER:
Yeah. Well, look, I mean, the problem in energy politics is there are not a lot of really good actors out there who are producing the kind of energy supply at the time you need them that can help out. Who are the people out there? Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran. People who have the capacity to do it are not the people we like. And that's a fact of life. So you pick Russia as your worst case at the moment because you're mad at them. It makes you have to rethink your friendships elsewhere in the world.
CHUCK TODD:
And Helene, I want to bring up China. It seems like the administration is divided on whether to try to separate China from Russia or just say, "No, treat China publicly as a partner of Russia and see if they, then, are embarrassed and pull back."
HELENE COOPER:
It's so interesting watching how the administration is trying to both pull China into this. They're very much threatening China, "Be careful how far you go in using force."
CHUCK TODD:
He didn't guarantee sanctions, though. He didn't.
HELENE COOPER:
No. No, he didn't. But there's no doubt that a lot of Chinese businesses are going to be dragged into this. I don't see how they get out of it. But at the same time you also have, on the diplomatic front, you have to look at who can help to bring about some sort of exit ramp. And when you start talking about that, you've got to look at Israel, you've got to look at China. And China could well be the best chance that there is. So it's a push-pull right now.
CHUCK TODD:
When it's good versus evil, you have to sometimes, when you're on the good side, have some ambiguity about discerning the real evil from the somewhat evil, I guess. Anyway, when we come back, a change of subject. I'm going to talk to Bill Barr about his last days as attorney general, and what he thinks of Donald Trump now.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Bill Barr was no stranger to controversy in his nearly two years as President Trump's attorney general. Critics would charge that he was more of an advocate for Mr. Trump than for the Justice Department, especially in his public framing of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. But he also defied Mr. Trump by insisting publicly there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. The now former president, not surprisingly, has since turned on him. Mr. Barr has written a book with a pretty clever title, One Damn Thing After Another and he joins me now. Mr. Barr, welcome to Meet The Press.
WILLIAM BARR:
Thanks, Chuck. Thanks for having me.
CHUCK TODD:
I want to start with something you said in an interview in September of 2020, just a couple months before the 2020 election. Take a listen to it. It was a radio interview.
[BEGIN TAPE]
WILLIAM BARR:
You know, liberals project. You know, the president is going to stay in office, and seize power, and all that (BEEP). I've never heard of that crap. I mean, I'm the attorney general. I would think I would have heard about it would have heard about it, okay? They're projecting."
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
September of 2020 you didn't buy it.
WILLIAM BARR:
No.
CHUCK TODD:
Obviously hindsight shows you they weren't projecting, and they weren't wrong. Do you admit that now?
WILLIAM BARR:
No, I mean, I'm not sure what the basis was for saying at that time that he had some plan to stay in office. I think he actually at the time of election thought he won the election. So if there was a plan to stay in office, it's something that materialized after the election. I saw no sign of a plan before the election to stay in office, regardless of the outcome.
CHUCK TODD:
Well, I hear you there. But President Trump himself, I mean there was a reason why people drew these conclusions. I'm just going to play you the greatest hits, if you will, over '16 and '20 of him essentially not accepting election results. Take a listen.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
The only way we can lose, in my opinion, I really mean this, Pennsylvania, is if cheating goes on. I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win. There's going to be fraud all over the place. The only way they can win, Pennsylvania, frankly, is to cheat on the ballot.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Point was, he was sowing these seeds for four years. My goodness, he accused Ted Cruz of cheating in the Iowa caucus the first time he'd ever appeared on any sort of ballot here. I mean, you know, that's not a pattern of practice?
WILLIAM BARR:
Well, I don't know, there was sort of the same thing in 2016 on both sides. I felt for a long time that he was going to lose the election. I went in April and told him that I thought he was going to lose the election and, you know, that his personal behavior, his obnoxious behavior, was turning off key blocks of voters, and he was going to lose. And on election night I felt he was going to lose. And I was actually surprised it was as close as it was.
CHUCK TODD:
You seem to think he was always getting bad advice, you talked about Rudy Giuliani in particular who I think you in the book credit. I mean, it says, "Rudy Giuliani now led him not to just one impeachment, but two." But you sort of seem as if you don't put the blame on the president. Don't you think he looks for people who give him this bad advice? I mean, he didn't want to take your advice, he didn't want to take a John Bolton's advice on various things. He did want to take a Rudy Giuliani's advice. Isn't that on him, and not on Giuliani?
WILLIAM BARR:
Oh yes. And I say that he tends to surround himself with people who will tell him what he wants to hear. Before the election, you know, he cast his net broadly, and talked to a lot of people, and cabinet secretaries, all of us frequently had to wrestle with him to accomplish things that we thought would keep him on track. And we were successful, generally, but it was frequently like wrestling an alligator as I said in the book. But after the election, he would just listen to this group of people who had no government position, but were telling him exactly what he wanted to hear, and he's ultimately to blame for that. There's something about him that he, you know, wants to be surrounded by yes men.
CHUCK TODD:
That is --
WILLIAM BARR:
On the outside of government.
CHUCK TODD:
Right. That is a mark of a lot of totalitarian leaders, authoritarian leaders. They want to be surrounded by people who tell them what they want to hear. We're dealing with this with Putin right now. Does that not give you pause about his ability to ever be commander in chief again?
WILLIAM BARR:
Well, I don't support his renomination, you know, to be nominated as the standard bearer in '24, and I'm going to support somebody else.
CHUCK TODD:
No, I understand that.
WILLIAM BARR:
Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
But you sort of shocked a lot of people because you spend a lot of time in your books painting this person as unfit for office.
WILLIAM BARR:
Well, I also --
CHUCK TODD:
And making it clear that he, himself, that he's got temperamental issues, he's got character issues, and yet you would risk that again over any – over Joe Biden?
WILLIAM BARR:
Well, I think there are a lot of American people right now that might prefer having him back in office than what we see --
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that.
WILLIAM BARR:
– under Biden.
CHUCK TODD:
But I'm talking about you.
WILLIAM BARR:
And --
CHUCK TODD:
But I'm talking about you, you've had firsthand account. You saw it up close.
WILLIAM BARR:
Right, well, I think elections are a binary choice, and unfortunately sometimes it's choosing the lesser of two evils. I believe that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is dangerous for the United States.
CHUCK TODD:
You've said this quite a bit. It's an uncomfortable thing to hear from somebody who was needing to provide equal justice under the law as Attorney General, because you said it while you were Attorney General. You really think the left in this country is somehow more dangerous than some issues around the world? I mean, you feel like --
WILLIAM BARR:
No, I just said in terms of the leadership of the country, I think they would be a dangerous choice for the United States. Our system, the person who's in charge of the administration of the criminal law, is a politically accountable official, and an official has to be politically accountable. But at the same time dedicated to providing equal justice based on law and facts with no favoritism or partisanship, which I did.
CHUCK TODD:
The account I read in your resignation, the accepted resignation, it seemed like you were anxious for him to accept your resignation, that you didn't want to be there perhaps, for whatever shenanigans he might pull in the last 20 days in office. Am I reading that correctly?
WILLIAM BARR:
No, because actually I thought he was history on December 14th, the day I tendered my resignation.
CHUCK TODD:
Is that why you wrote such flowery language, which is a lot --
WILLIAM BARR:
Well.
CHUCK TODD:
– different than this book.
WILLIAM BARR:
Well, no, it isn’t. I – in the book, I give him a lot of credit for identifying the key issues and having the gumption to press forward and accomplish a lot of good things for the American people and his combativeness worked for him in 2016, and partly while he was in office, breaking through the smothering hostility of the media. But I tried to be balanced. I pointed out what I thought were his failings, and the fact that he went off the rails at the end. But on December 14th, the states certified their votes.
CHUCK TODD:
You felt as if there was no fear that he was going to mess around after that?
WILLIAM BARR:
No, I thought that that was history. You know, that there was no way, and there is no way really, to turn that around.
CHUCK TODD:
What did you think when you saw the reports he was trying to install this Jeffrey Clark as Attorney General, and fired the person that had been the Acting Attorney General?
WILLIAM BARR:
I was surprised that he was taking things so far. And –
CHUCK TODD:
Did you know Mr. Clark?
WILLIAM BARR:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
Were you aware of sort of his --
WILLIAM BARR:
No.
CHUCK TODD:
– proclivities of doing this?
WILLIAM BARR:
Not at all.
CHUCK TODD:
Should he have been --
WILLIAM BARR:
I was surprised.
CHUCK TODD:
Should he have been fired for doing that? Would you have fired him?
WILLIAM BARR:
Of course.
CHUCK TODD:
The minute you found out he was doing something like that, working on behalf --
WILLIAM BARR:
Of course. Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
One other question I have for you. It's on the Georgia situation. I want to play the infamous – there are so many phones calls with him. Let me play this phone call, because I actually have a recording of this one, with Georgia officials on January 2nd. I'm curious to have your opinion on it.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
We just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
It's being investigated. There's a Grand Jury in Atlanta looking into this. How damning do you believe that statement alone is perhaps when it comes to him being found guilty of breaking a law?
WILLIAM BARR:
Yeah. I listened to the whole call, and in my opinion, what I heard was he was listing all the votes that he felt were questionable or fraudulent, and there was a big total, and I interpreted that statement as saying, "Look, somewhere among all of these things that we think are fraudulent, surely you can find 11,700, because I have many more votes that are fraudulent than I need." I thought that was the thrust of this conversation. But, you know, I --
CHUCK TODD:
He also seemed to hint at a potential investigation from the government into Mr. Raffensberger. Do you not see that as intimidation?
WILLIAM BARR:
Well, I thought that was very heavy-handed but, you know, I'm going to let the process in Georgia work. They're going to get all the facts. I have disapproved of his behavior after the election, and made it clear from the very beginning I did.
CHUCK TODD:
You don’t think though – you would be surprised if a Grand Jury indicted him?
WILLIAM BARR:
Personally I would be, but.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. William Barr, former Attorney General, twice now, you and Donald Rumsfeld I guess, share that distinction in that respect. The book is called One Damn Thing After Another, thanks for coming on sharing your perspective.
WILLIAM BARR:
Thank you. Yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
You got it. When we come back, we've heard so much about those friends of Putin, the Russian Oligarchs, and the sanctions against them. Coming up, where they park all their money, and as we go to break, I want to remember one of our own here at NBC News. Max Schindler worked here for over 40 years, he directed both the Today Show and, yes, Meet the Press, where here he was known as our unofficial historian. Max was in the director's chair for so many critical events from the Kennedy assassination, to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. His grandson Michael told us that Max personified the adage that if you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Max Schindler was 91.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. It's Data Download time. As the West ramps up its economic sanctions against Russia, some attention has turned to punishing the country's wealthiest individuals. It's the oligarchs who made billions of dollars doing business with Putin's government or essentially grafting off the government, but tracking the wealth of Russia's ruling class isn't going to be so easy as it's tied in with major businesses, institutions, and real estate all across the globe, particularly in many Western countries. 60% of this oligarchical wealth is outside the country, an estimated trillion dollars. One thing the West wants to do is make sure that money doesn't find its way back into Russia to help fund Putin's war of choice. So, where is this money? It's all over various institutions, soccer clubs here, a German tourism agency here, Uber, although they did sell those shares out of Uber in 2019. Then you have the real estate. According to Forbes, some 62 properties they have found worth over $2.5 billion among 13 different oligarchs. That's just of what we’ve tracked at this point. It's likely more. And then you look at the charitable giving that many of these oligarchs have done to try to sort of make themselves more acceptable in Western society. Look at here, from the Kennedy Center, Mayo Clinic, New York University, Brandeis, and yes, MIT. When we come back, former president Trump keeps trying to make people forget how supportive he's been of Vladimir Putin. Stick with us.
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. Panel is back here. Before I get to a little bit of Donald Trump trying to fix his Putin problem, Kimberly, the most interesting thing out of the interview I had with Mr. Barr was his comment about Georgia and that phone call because it really actually fell into the same pattern of the entire book. He outlined something bad, but then gives him a generous --
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
– explanation for why it -- oh, it's not as bad as you think.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Yes, he's an unfit alligator who needs to be wrestled, but at the same time, no, maybe he was just trying to figure out --
CHUCK TODD:
Rub the belly of the alligator.
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
– what was going on here. And you know, the fact that he gave the exact number of votes he needed to change the result is just coincidental. I mean, this is a line that folks from the Trump administration are trying to walk anyway when they're on their quest for post-administration redemption, but it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. I mean, the question that I have is that if he was so keen, if he was so sure that the election interference was nothing, why did he authorize U.S. attorneys to announce investigations before the election? Why was he right at the side, really being an enabler, right until the very end, until it was clear that he was leaving and it was time for him to exit out of the door? So, I think it's still that he's trying to thread that needle, but it still seems unthreaded to me.
CHUCK TODD:
Rich, to me, there's a lot of rationalization on the Trump side of things that comes to a form of whataboutism. Yeah, but. You know, yeah, but look at this. It's still hard to defend.
RICH LOWRY:
Yes, I mean, it is hard to defend, but look, there are very important people, very influential, who at the end of the day said no to Trump. Bill Barr right up there, I think Mike Pence, the most influential. But you know, for me, the most fraught question is --
CHUCK TODD:
Will they say no a second time, right?
RICH LOWRY:
Well, this is the thing. The story hasn't ended. And for me, you look at a Ron DeSantis, you look at a Senator Tom Cotton, and you have these Republicans really thoughtfully trying to come up with a synthesis – How do we do pre-Trump Republican party with some post-Trump Republican party? It's more populous than it used to be. Without any of the baggage of Trump, without any of the insanity of 2020. And for me, it's just mystifying that Republicans wouldn't find that more alluring than going back to Trump, but I've been mystified before.
CHUCK TODD:
Look, Donald Trump, look, he is trying to fix his Putin problem. Here was his latest attempt last night.
[BEGIN TAPE]
PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
The fake news said my personality would get us into a war. "I'm telling you, that guy's going to get us into a war." But actually, my personality is what kept us out of war. If you think Putin's going to stop, it's going to get worse and worse. He's not going to accept it. And we don't have anybody to talk to him. You had somebody to talk to him with me.
[END TAPE]
CHUCK TODD:
Quite the line he's trying to walk.
PETER BAKER:
Yes. Well, first of all, the first argument is the madman theory of government.
CHUCK TODD:
Madman theory, yes.
PETER BAKER:
I was so crazy and volatile, he wouldn't have dared to do what he's doing now because he didn't know what I would do in response. Okay.
CHUCK TODD:
Is he sitting on the nuclear warhead in the moment, yelling? I'm sorry, I'm, like, getting that visual in my --
PETER BAKER:
But he still was not criticizing anything Putin. He's rather criticizing Americans, especially Joe Biden, than he is Vladimir Putin. He refuses, to this day, and we don't know why. That's always been a central mystery of Donald Trump. What is it that he thinks is happening between him and Vladimir Putin that he will not say one negative word about him?
HELENE COOPER:
I would love to just game out where we would be right now if Donald Trump was still president and Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine. First of all, Trump, who would already have pulled us out of NATO, because that's what he wanted to do. He had already started pulling American troops out of Europe. The Pentagon had kind of stalled that until Biden came into office. The first thing he would have said is, "It's not our problem. Ukraine is not our problem." That's it. Go off and do, you know, this is not our business. And NATO, at this point, would have been completely divided. You would see disunity. You would see other NATO countries peeling off. What are we going to do? The alliance would be broken. So, let's make sure, when Trump is saying this stuff about how much differently-- just if President Trump was president right now, we would be in a completely different place.
CHUCK TODD:
Rich, Pat McCrory is actually using Putin. I'm not going to play the ad right now because we don't have a lot of time. He's using Putin as an attack on a Trump-endorsed candidate. If it proves to be effective, is it -- I know, you don't predict, but that should be a signal, no?
RICH LOWRY:
Well, look, there's some Republicans that got on the wrong side of this because the isolationist impulse in the party and the belief if there's something that everyone believes, it must be wrong, right. And it's true that things that everyone believes sometimes are wrong or distorted, but not all the time. And it should have been obvious all along that Putin was a cynical thug and now it's been unmistakably demonstrated. But I do think, on the madman theory, Putin would have hesitated or at least been wary of what Trump's reactions would have been in a way that he wasn't with Biden. Plus, you know, things have happened that Trump was calling for. The end of Nord Stream 2, more German defense spending. And if you want to look at one of the biggest strategic things that's happened against Putin's interest, it's that this feckless power in the middle of Europe, Germany, is now going to get much more serious about its defense.
CHUCK TODD:
Kimberly?
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Listen, I think one thing that's happening besides the isolationism with some of those Republicans is this idea that they know that Donald Trump likes Putin and they want to be as Trumpy as possible. And I think that is one of the problems here. I agree with Helene. I think that we would be in an extraordinarily different position. I don't think that the unity in favor of the Ukrainian people would be what it is now if Trump were still in office. And I think that that's something that the party is still wrestling with individually all the way down the ballot.
PETER BAKER:
Remember what Trump said about Ukraine. "They're all bad people there."
KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR:
Yes.
PETER BAKER:
"And they're trying to take me down." He was never sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause. And even when he gave things to Ukraine, had to be talked into it or bullied into it by other Republicans.
CHUCK TODD:
We'll have to leave it there. Thank you, guys. Thank you, all, for being with us. We'll be back next week and we won't have any time changes because, if it's Sunday, it's Meet The Press.