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Supporter of what we want to do with russia. i remember back in the middle of the cold war you are looking at a nation, germany, that had 500,000 troops under arms. today it's 65,000. they are not even contributing what they should be contributing to nato, which is 2% of their g.d.p. they are about 1.3%. and they could double that. and i've always said, tongue in cheek, if you want to get the german's attention, rearm germany, they seem to march east and they are not supporting nato. macron sees that. the real leader you are seeing emerge in europe is macron of france. he's taken the lead from...

German chancellor in russia. >> there have been a lot of frustration. it's a new chancellor. a store read history between putin and merkel. but a lot of focus on the ties between these two countries, specifically oil and natural gas. that's where germany does come across as a bit beholding to russia at this point. >> we've been looking at this overall map to see how ukraine las been surrounded on three sides for quite some time now. in some ways, the situation is even worse for ukraine because of these military exercises in belarus up there, but also the new presence of the russian navy. >> we...

Good more you. >> i meant more broadly in terms of the weeks ahead, they will be traveling. >> good point. >> the sense of the mode of transport for this particular trip remains a mystery. hans, we have a rule of thumb around here. that's any time the german chancellor comes to the white house we book you on the show the next day. give us a sense of your reading of the meeting yesterday and whether germany will make the commitment the u.s. wants in order to help be a bulwark to russian aggression of the ukrainian border. >> look, no mistakes from the german chancellor. tough act to follow, dif...

Negotiations on the belarus port. >> does it -- i'm wondering if it matters to him that this has galvanized nato and the west and the u.s. and its allies. a lot of people against vladimir putin and russia. i mean, what is the u.s. and nato and the eu want as a resolution here? is it just for russia to stop invading ukraine or is it for a regime change in moscow, what is it? >> i think it does matter to putin. i think he badly miscalculated. he thought after taking a piece of georgia in 2008 and two pieces of ukraine in 2014, and intervening in u.s. elections in 2016, and not much was done to h...

He said putin had four assumptions and they all turned out to be false. what were they? he thought ukraine was weak, right? he thought europe was distracted. turned out shoelts, brand-new chancellor in germany reversed merkel's policies within 48 hours. the third thing he said is that he thought russia's economy could withstand the sanctions. they might be able to do that thus far. yet to be determined. the last thing he said is that putin thought his military had been modernized in a way that could fight this war effectively. in the end they may prove they're successful with that also but the...