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>> good to be with you. >> it's pretty brutal enough panelist to night, chief white house correspondent in the new york times. he spent years as the moscow bureau chief for the washington post closely watching the rise of putin. retired four star u.s. army general barry mccaffrey, joel reuben, former deputy assistant secretary of state under president obama. peter, let start with you. you spent years in moscow covering putin. what is your reaction this weekend as you watched this unfold? >> well of course i think we should start with the idea that we don't really know what's going on here. i think we see certain things that we are interpreting but we got to be careful to over analyze it because the fact that they are usually in russia games and games, motivations and intrigue that are harder for us to see. broadly speaking, i think what you said is correct. putin has been shown now to be at his weakest point, his most tenuous point in 23 years.
seen as fully in control leader of russia after what is happening on the battlefield. >> joel, to think this could be seen as the beginning of the end for putin? >> it certainly is a situation where if the leadership around putin's wondering about how long he has in his ability to stick around they're going to start a look at potentially having other ways out. this is not helping, this is not healthy for anyone in moscow to look at and see that this force essentially, this rogue territory was a shun wagner group was able to march into russia and nearly into moscow. there are other militia types groups in russia as well. there are other leaders, other oligarchs. this disarray is not helping for those looking for survival. i think prigozhin to. he might be in belarus but he's going to have to look out for his neck.
prigozhin took a powder on them 11 to the mercy of the gru, and the fsb. all those guys are going to get tag with radioactive tag that says we are going to come find you once this thing cools down. so in the longer run, you know, 90 days, 180 days. anyone that lifted his finger to strike the king is going to get taken out one manner or another. the people and central africa, and the middle east, most of them are there to steal things for the wagner group, and to make their own profits. i would assume you could just tell the gru, you people now pick up responsibility for the deployed forces. but they have to bring them under control, i can't imagine they will be proceeding in belarus harvesting a half billion dollars here in profit. that's not going to happen. >> joel, what do you think happens for the wagner group from here? >> well stephanie, the reason the wagner group was put into
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something he rarely, if ever, does in a state of emergency, while facing down an insurrection from one of his most powerful military leaders -- that is not a good look. and it is something that the entire world and russians all saw. so, like i said before, a lot of these russian leaders are probably going to be seeing this as an opportunity. a lot of ukrainian leaders are going to be seeing it as an opportunity as well. but -- mentioned it's this in the last hour. probably won't -- immediate knock on effect on what is going on on the frontlines, on the battlefield. the wagner fighters had already been withdrawn several weeks earlier. so, i don't think we are going to see, suddenly, ukrainian forces in their newly minted counteroffensives deadly breakthrough the russian lines in a way they haven't before. guys? >> nbc's matt bradley. matt bradley, thank you very much for breaking that down for us. joining the conversation now, joel reuben, former secretary -- holden triplett, former director of counter intelligence for the national security council, and william taylor, former u.s. ambassador
but intelligence agencies in the united states and abroad are left wondering what the signifies for the state of russia, the ukrainian war and the international community writ large. our panel is back with me. joel, part of that international community, of course -- china, if you are president, xi jinping, what is it you are watching for? how are you beginning to reassess your relationship with russia? >> right now, jinping has to be looking at russia and wondering if this state could potentially collapse and wondering if -- investment in the relationship. very deft diplomacy by secretary blinken going out to beijing about ten days or so ago. it's very important have these contacts. and it's very important for the united to be speaking with china about the potential negative fallout inside russia. china publicly said that they were not going to provide, nor have they provided a -- assistance. we will see -- continue to, i'm sure -- the united states continue to
doing was during things up in russia that could cause a lot of chaos. well, it might solve some immediate problems that we have with the war in ukraine, the longer term problems of having chaos in a nuclear armed nations are pretty severe. and so -- obviously that got the attention of the american administration. >> joel, you have been in the room through those conversations where those -- u.s. by agencies pick this up and were quick to tell the, white house to tell other government agencies, which means that there have been conversations happening behind closed doors that we have not known about for good reason. it also is -- that there are conversations happening right now. right? we have heard fairly little from this white house. that is strategic. that is by design. as best you can, give us your sense of the conversations that they are having behind closed doors. >> yeah, alicia, certainly the administration is looking at the fallout, and the day after scenarios that were described by matt. and this is not over. so, certainly, in the near term,
arrested after this? this will be indicative of the level of control that putin can maintain in russia. we may not see anything for a few days or, couple of weeks, because he has been hurt by this, but i do think that after that, we start to see something more active. if we don't, that may indicate that there is a much larger crack at the top than anyone anticipated. >> as we began this conversation, the story is just beginning. joel reuben, holden triplett, ambassador taylor, thank you all so much. with the biden administration, what they are saying, and not saying, as the world watches a dangerous rift take shape in russia. stay with us. stay with us the first inkling that something was wrong was i started to notice that i couldn't do things without losing my breath. i couldn't make it through the airport, and every like 20 or 30 yards i had to sit down and get my breath. every physical exertion seemed to exhaust me. and finally, i went to the hospital
looked it was in airspace altitude, 40,000 feet high. so, there is a very quick defense oriented reaction to that. and regardless of the diplomatic repercussions, which there were none, clearly, we hadn't heard of any yet, it had to be taken down. today, it's interesting, it's a joint operation, as dan mentioned out of a norad joint operation, u.s. kennedy and canadian, demonstrating that they're tracking this now. no clear diplomatic angle yet, but when we find out what that stuff is and dissect it, i'm sure we'll have a better idea of where it came from. >> joel, in dan de luce some's reporting, he had some interesting analysis that we often hear when it comes to matters of national security of defense, which is this push and pull on transparency, and the way in which the comments that we are going to hear today that we are waiting to hear likely can be influenced by things that happened earlier in the week. walk us through, and they
that underpins aerospace surveillance. >> we are watching canadian defense minister anita anand answer questions about that third objects shut down in north american airspace. really, underlining the unity between the u.s. and canada. let's bring back joel rubin, he's a former deputy assistant secretary of state, and the president of the washington strategy. joel, i was struck by a few things there. one, in the piece of information, and the underscoring that it's the first time she will use rubin norad has taken down an object. what is the significance of that? >> well, alicia, what this means is that norad has been tested for the first time in its 20-year history. and it has succeeded. but it is now a new moment. and once the test has been