 We're obviously witnessing a really extraordinary set of events with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's sometimes very hard to follow what line the United States and NATO is following in deciding to provide some forms of assistance and not other forms of assistance to Ukraine. Do you think we're getting the line right? Well that's something we're actively debating and I'm actively wrestling with and reflecting on Michael. One of the challenges as elected officials in the Senate and House make public pronouncements about whether we should or shouldn't send MiG-29s for example or S-300s or different weapon systems either from the American inventory that we captured at some point during the wars in southwest Asia or from NATO allies is that I keep urging my colleagues we should rely on the professionals in our intelligence community and in our military who are advising our president on which weapon systems and which level of engagement will prove to be too escalatory but as someone who has sat through a number of classified briefings and a fair number of open briefings on the topic the simple answer is we don't really know we are coming right up against a Cuban Missile Crisis moment in terms of a direct confrontation between NATO the United States the West and Russia. Vladimir Putin I don't need to tell you or this audience shocked most of Europe by launching the largest military invasion of a neighboring country since the Second World War as the Polish ambassador recently told an assembled group of several dozen senators incredulous in the first days after this war began this is a 1939 moment and so as we watch night after night as our news shares with us graphic details of horrific assaults that are killing tens of thousands of civilians and decimating ancient cities throughout Ukraine we have to ask ourselves that very question how far are we willing to go what is the line we're willing to push and to hear President Zelensky's plea that we need to make sure that freedom is armed better than tyranny. Thank you senator when you're thinking about the situation in Ukraine some people have trouble understanding why we might not really defend them when we have promised to defend all of NATO so if if there's an attack on Ukraine that's you know 10 miles from the Polish border we're going to be kind of careful but if we see a bomb land in Poland then are we all in so what's the what's the dividing line that we should be thinking about between countries that are in NATO and Ukraine. So in the first week of the conflict and frankly in the week leading up to the conflict I had a number of exchanges with Republican colleagues one of I won't name him but a midwestern Republican colleague who was in the military and is quite a hawk and he was saying to me that he thought it was a big mistake for President Biden to clearly say that American troops would not be going into Ukraine that we would provide military arms we would provide intelligence we would provide other financial support but we would not send troops we would not fight Americans in Ukraine and he also said we will defend every inch of NATO territory and this colleague of mine was saying the president made a mistake in preemptively declaring that line that we this side of the line we will we will defend every inch that side will provide material but not troops and I reminded him that that was a line that needed to be reinforced because of our previous president I don't want to spend too much time relitigating the international record of President Trump but he put at question whether or not we really would come to the defense of NATO publicly and privately in statements speeches and actions he's significantly undermined the strength of our commitment to article five of the NATO treaty which which says that we will all come to each other's defense so I think the question that we have to ask ourselves and that Europeans are asking us is first will we actually meet that commitment will the United States across electoral cycles reliably come to the aid of Lithuania or of a Balkan or Baltic state if invaded by a neighboring country first and President Biden has repeatedly and forcefully reassured that second will we come to the aid of a country like Georgia Moldova Ukraine that has sought NATO membership is trying to get into NATO is trying to align with the West but is not currently covered by that NATO treaty and then last and this is a point President Zelensky of Ukraine has made repeatedly pointedly and at least in my case effectively that really troubles my conscience in 1994 Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world they willingly gave it up in exchange for a written commitment from the United States the United Kingdom and Russia to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity so as President as President Zelensky forcefully said to those of us assembled at the Munich security conference is your word worth anything now President Biden just announced I think yesterday another 800 million dollars in materials including how it serves and drones and armored personnel carriers we are overwhelmingly the largest provider of arms and humanitarian support to Ukrainian refugees and to the Ukrainian armed forces and territorial defense forces but we are still respecting that line and to the point of your question Michael it is somewhat arbitrary and the fact patterns are going to force this question there almost certainly will be an incident where Putin goes too far either within Ukraine by using chemical weapons or just over the border by claiming an accident in which a cruise missile strikes an arms depot where Americans are unloading stinger missiles from a C-17 about to go across the border we are in a very dangerous moment where it is important that on a bipartisan and measured way we in Congress and the administration come to a common position about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to the aid and defensive Ukraine if the answer is never then we are inviting another level of escalation and brutality by Putin but so far that is the answer of a majority in Congress and this administration thank you senator you mentioned that you had a chance to hear directly from from solinsky about the events on the ground and that mode of interaction is in in many sense a new one the president of another country directly connecting with the legislators from from around the world with the the public from around the world could you comment a little bit about what it's been like to hear the president talk that way and whether you think it's an effective strategy for him to pursue president Zelensky has redefined himself and his nation in the eyes of the world certainly in the eyes of the american congress with electrifying real-time personal direct appeals i first met him a number of years ago but on christmas eve of last year two dozen of us republicans and democrats house and senate spent more than an hour on a call with him at a point where there was a russian build-up but far from certainty that there would be an invasion in fact the united states was saying we believe you're a genuine risk and there was some frustration in congress and the administration the president Zelensky and many other leaders in ukraine seem more focused on settling scores internally and on other issues than they were on really preparing for this conflict the next time i had as direct an exposure to him was at the munich security conference where we were in the same room as he delivered a really powerful address and then it was just a few days later that the war began since then i've been on several calls with him but the most memorable was he addressed the entire assembled congress of the united states several hundred of us gathered in a big chamber that's underground that's near the capital to hear a real-time address and it was powerful motivating personal the forcefulness behind his appeal frankly michael is rooted in his personal courage he has a young beautiful family and it's now public what we all first learned in a classified setting that the united states when the russians were in circling kiv and that we had credible intelligence that there were several assassination teams hunting for Zelensky and trying to kill him and his family we offered to remove him to exfiltrate him to give him a safe passage outside the country until launch a government in excel and his memorable response was i don't need a ride i need more ammunition and that sort of personal courage those daily broadcasts by him and his most senior advisors from the center of kiv as there were as there were shelling and bombardments and as there were special forces units from russia in the city i think that helped galvanize the world but frankly the willingness to fight by the ukrainian people of all ages and backgrounds genuinely surprised the russians and has genuinely motivated the world the united states has long counted itself the world's principal beacon of liberty and promoter of democracy and open societies ukraine today is showing us what it looks like to actually fight for those principles at enormous cost and to be unwilling to compromise and to simply give up in the face of overwhelming odds