now, the big challenge of president biden was how to allay those russian fears while not selling out ukraine. ukraine, remember, wants to join the nato alliance and wants to cooperate even closer with those western allies. so that s a difficult balance which at the moment it seems that president biden may have taken a step towards achieving. matthew, i want you to stay with us. i also want to bring in our chief national security correspondent, jim shuuto, along with kylie atwood. the white house says president biden was crystal clear with putin today, but they ve also acknowledged the u.s. is s somewhat limited to prevent a russian invasion. part of the message seemed to be that the u.s. is willing to go further than it did in 2014, which still holds today. it still occupies and controls both crimea and parts of eastern crew cry mimea.
ukrainians because obviously vladimir putin continues his threats of further invasion after invading their country already. but explain how the president continued to hold up aid to ukraine at the same time eight times he was pressuring the ukrainian president to interfere in america s political process. just a few seconds of background here. after ukraine was invaded first in cry mimea, the government lod at it and decided they weren t going to supply aid, so they sanctioned russia. this administration, correctly after some consideration, i would argue, provided defensive arms. and a chunk of them went to ukraine early on. then there were repeated efforts because the russians keep amping it up, not other they not
nato. lord, when you put it that way he has mirrored it at every point. what i can t do is connect the dot and say there s some secret putin e-mail or text or memo that goes to donald trump. i remember during the annexation of cry mimea and trump basicall said crimea was part of russia and ukraine is basically part of russia. i don t know where he gets that. the whole thing is very strange. again, just as a patriotic american, i would say i dearly hope he is an unwitting agent of russia and putin, rather than a witting agent. that somehow he is mirroring this without quite understanding why. because if he s actually affiliated, a russian agent, you know, american history has to begin all over again. phil rucker, you want to top that? i don t think i can top that. phil, you always can top that. you always can top that. what are you guys chasing today?
campaign. this administration s russian policy has been the most effective in history. the kremlin s hand picked client is one example of under mining nato, and taking the word in the russian intelligence service social security probably the most troubling example, but you see a tee nominally. it is not about efforts at reigning in, but you ticked off all of the points they was going to make, syria, cry mimea, thers not much left.
probability event that russia would annex cry mimea, that rus would whatever happened in the uk, it s still being investigated. or shoot down a civilian airliner. or violate our sovereignty in the 2016 presidential elections. the point is putin is in an aggressive, offensive position and we need to push back on him. i can t do it, i m just a citizen right now, i live in palo alto. i need the president of the united states to do it because if he doesn t, it s going to look like a sign of weakness. mike mcfaul, thank you so much, good to see you. breaking news, let s go to nbc news justice correspondent pete williams with new developments just in. andrea, this involves a lawsuit that the state of maryland and the district of columbia filed against president trump, arguing that he has violated a section of the constitution that bars what are known as emoluments. and the question before this is