fellow at stanford. also, greg simons from the institute for russian and eurasian studies. t mr. ambassador, let me start with you. we have these cease fires that had been set up, agreed to by russia, but also the bombing of a maternity and children s hospital. does it appear that russia is in a place where they re ready for talks that would even be consequential? let me say that i think it s good that these contacts happened, but i have very minimal expectations. in the last couple of day, you ve had coming out of kyiv, some suggestions they might be prepared to compromise on certain questions of interest to russia but the russians have not responded publicly. and while it s good that foreign minister will meet with the russian foreign minister lavrov,
much. speaking of exclusives, i have former u.s. ambassador to russia mike mcfaul here who minutes ago was on the phone with president zelenskyy. so, mike, let me start there. what can you tell us? chuck, just to be clear, i was on i have lots of friends in ukraine. we ve talked about it for many weeks now. we ve had 300 people that we ve trained at stanford that work in the government and various places. one works for president zelenskyy. i talk to him pretty much every day. on our skype call today he said i have a visitor who wants to join us, and that s when president zelenskyy came on the screen. so it was not an intended call men just got on and we talked in russian, by the way, because we both speak russian. his first language, my second. you know, the mood is what he said publicly, and i m not going to talk about specifics of our conversation, but they realize, just like the foreign minister
have a victory in ukraine because it will be a bloody massacre. and russian guys also will come back in the coffins, yes. reporter: russian guys will come back in coffins. no doubt if there is a russian invasion of this country and remember, moscow insists it has no plans to invade it is not going to be an easy military operation at all and could get very, very messy, indeed, here on the ground. back to you. it is striking that we are at this point, especially after what we saw in 2014. matthew, natasha, thanks for the reporting. jim, as well, you know, you re reporting too as we take a close look at what s next here. joining us, steven pfister. he served at embassies in warsaw, moscow, london, research fellow at stanford.
affirmed at a cnn town hall on thursday that the u.s. would protect taiwan from a chinese attack, the white house quickly 2r tried to clarify the president was not announcing a change in u.s. policy, which was purposely left ambiguous. the question is, is such an attack likely? let me bring in our panel. richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations and oriana skylar mastro, a fellow at stanford as ssi and aei. she s also an office in the air force reserve but she s speaking today in her civilian capacity. oriana, let me ask you a basic question, why is taiwan so important to china? people sometimes ask are the chinese serious about this, and i m struck by the fact it s in the chinese constitution that they would like to reunify with taiwan. why? well, there s political, social and emotional components, obviously. the emotional component has to
gonzalez telling the new york times trump is a cancer for the country. gonzalez is a cuban-american who was a wide receiver for ohio state and went on to an mba at stanford after football injuries and thought to be a future republican star. that changed after he voted to impeach donald trump in the success impeachment and now will be primaried by a trump loyalist. what does it say about the republican party that someone like gonzalez cannot survive. washington post columnist george will. american happiness and discontents from 2008 to 2020. this is only the latest example, george, of what has happened to the republican party. this guy was tailor-made to be a rising star from ohio of all places, football star, stanford mba, cuban-american, but he can t run again. politically he s just finished.