 On Sunday, Joe Manchin appeared on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, and he seemingly expressed frustration with the Biden administration over their unwillingness to support a Ukrainian no-fly zone, i.e. support war with Russia, because that's exactly what that would lead to. And he even said that it was wrong to rule out a no-fly zone. But what he says here is completely reckless and insane. Nonetheless, we'll listen to what he has to say, and then I will tell you why what he's saying is madness when we come back. Look, you were on this Zoom with President Zelensky yesterday. Before I get into the details, just, you know, what was that like with him? What did he say to you guys? That was so surreal, but to have a person there on the front lines taking mortars every day and basically seeing his people being slaughtered and willing to withstand all of this and fight back and all he asked for was basically just help me. I'll fight my own fight. Just give me the tools to do it. And for us to hesitate, or anyone to hesitate in the free world, is wrong. And he said that. He said, listen, if your crane falls, then Europe may fall. Where do you want to stop? What does that mean for you? Are you right now, would you support a no-fly zone? Would you support doing this, which could trigger a white conflict? I understand that, but right now you don't signal to the nemesis of Putin. This is a Putin's war. This is not the Russian people's war. This is Putin's war and his quest for whatever it may be. But to take anything off the table thinking we might not be able to use things because we've already taken them off the table is wrong. I would take nothing off the table, but I would be very clear that we're going to support the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian president and this government. Every way humanly possible. Zelensky was very clear. He says, we don't need you to fight our fight. We don't need you to fly our planes or fly your planes into our war zone. We need the planes that we can fly ourselves and we have them on the border. You heard Secretary Blinken. That deal seems to be at least in motion. I think it's moving. I hope it's very clear. The trading of jets with the Poles in particular. Absolutely. We need to backfill that. Okay. Let me be very clear here. When somebody in the media asks a politician if they support a no fly zone over Ukraine, that's just the synonym for war with Russia at this point. And if we were to directly confront Russia by shooting down one of their planes, that's what would be entailed with the no fly zone that would immediately trigger World War Three. So this isn't some casual thing that we're talking about here. I don't think that media pundits should just flippantly talk about war with Russia by coding it in this more innocuous language, ostensibly innocuous language called no fly zone. Just say it's a war with Russia. Just ask if you support war with Russia because that's exactly what that is. And it's frustrating to see people in media mess this up time and again. And thankfully Chuck Todd, unlike other pundits, he actually implied, well, this could pull us into, you know, a greater conflict there, which it definitely would obviously. But at least he implied that it's more substantial than just, oh, you can't fly here. No, that means we directly confront Russia by shooting down their planes. And according to Joe Manchin, he wouldn't rule that out. He would not rule out war with Russia. He also said that you don't signal that you're not open to a no fly zone to the enemy because that would be bad. We want the enemy with nuclear weapons to think that we're crazy and we would be willing to shoot down their planes and trigger World War Three. Joe Manchin is a fucking moron and him saying that there proves that he's more mad than any of us imagined. But if you're not convinced with what I'm saying about a no fly zone, let me break it down. We just covered this article last week on the program, but I'm going to read it again just because it's so important here. As Zach Bochamp of Vox explains, as the war in Ukraine gets bloodier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has repeatedly urged members of the NATO Alliance to close the skies. This appears to be a request for a no fly zone, deploying NATO aircraft to Ukrainian airspace in order to block Russia from using its airspace in support of the invasion. This is a catastrophic idea. Stripped of Kant, the US announcing a no fly zone in Ukraine would be an American declaration of war on Russia. The first major conflict between the two nations that, put together, control 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. A no fly zone is not a magical umbrella that prevents planes flying in a given area. It's a decision to shoot at planes that fly in a given area, explains Olga Ulaker, the International Crisis Group's director for Europe and Central Asia. To put in a no fly zone is to go to war. The Biden administration appears to recognize the risk. In a Thursday press conference, President Biden categorically ruled out direct US intervention in Ukraine. Quote, our forces are not and will not be engaged in the conflict with Russia and Ukraine. This effectively takes any meaningful no fly zone off the table and there is no sign the president will change his mind. Now this article was published at the end of February, but since then the Biden administration has been pressed by members of the media to support a no fly zone. They've asked and heavily implied that this is something that he should be doing, but thankfully they've resisted calls for an escalation. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki last week said, no, this is a terrible idea because this means a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia, between NATO and Russia. And I just feel like people in the Senate should get this. Joe Manchin should understand what he's calling for. To say I wouldn't take this off the table means you're signaling to Russia that we would consider going to war with them. This is a nuclear armed country. We don't need to pretend to be tough for the sake of being tough. We need to be very clear and deliberate with the things that we say and not be reckless. But that's what Joe Biden Joe Manchin is doing and thankfully he's not the president. Joe Biden is and Joe Biden is doing the correct thing here and I commend him for resisting calls to go to war with Russia because that's insane. Again, they have news as do we would be pretty devastating for the species if this were in fact to take place and Joe Manchin isn't the only idiot in the Senate to say something incredibly reckless. Lindsey Graham on either Friday or Saturday called for Putin's assassination, which to have a sitting US senator say this publicly. I mean, who knows how the Kremlin interpreted that I don't know if they take Lindsey Graham that seriously, but they need to be watching everything that they say currently. You're a member of the US Senate. When you call for war with Russia, that's not some small thing. It's not like you're a regular citizen. You have an immense amount of power. So for people like Manchin to say this or Lindsey Graham to say Putin should be assassinated. I mean, this is all possibly seen as a sign of aggression from Putin and we don't want to give them any reason to escalate because again, they have nukes and so do we. And as a species, we all have a common interest to want to survive. So unless Joe Manchin wants to go to war himself, wants to go join Ukraine if he cares that much, or maybe send his son or his daughter who was engaged in price fixing when she was the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Unless you all want to go and fight in Ukraine, send his children to go die. Shut the fuck up because world war is something that is absolutely necessary to avoid at all costs, given the stakes, given that there are nuclear weapons between both countries. And I just got to point this out. I mean, he's talking about war with Russia here and advocating for war with Russia or at least to be fair to him, not ruling war with Russia out, not taking it off the table. Except, how much would that cost? Let me remind you what he said in response to the $3.5 trillion price tag for Build Back Better when he was on Meet the Press back in September when negotiations were ongoing. So he was a hard no on spending $3.5 trillion to help people in the United States, but when it comes to war with Russia, he's not going to take that off the table. Does he have any estimate as to how much that will cost? Do we have a CBO score as to how much war with Russia will cost? Assuming we go to war with Russia and we survive a nuclear apocalypse, how much would that cost to rebuild society and humanity? This is a fucking moron. I mean, Joe Manchin, I get that he has a limited amount of functioning brain cells still left in his body. But his handler should be explaining to him, don't openly call for war or keep war on the table when you do interviews, because people hear this, Russia hears this, and this can be seen as provocation. I just wish that the members of the media who asked this question would stop coding war with Russia in this seemingly innocuous language, no-fly zone. Just call it war with Russia. Just call it direct confrontation with Russia because that's what it is. And characterizing it as anything but that is absolutely reckless. I'll say it again, to institute a no-fly zone is tantamount to a declaration of war with Russia. This is something that we absolutely cannot and will never support.