- War in Europe and a historic Supreme Court pick.

(siren wailing) - Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences.

- [Yamiche] Russia launches a full scale invasion of Ukraine and America and its allies impose strict economic sanctions.

- Whoever would try to stop us, Russia's response will be immediate and lead to such consequences that you have never faced in your history.

- [Yamiche] Russian president, Vladimir Putin ominously warns the west not to interfere.

Meanwhile, the new war in Europe rattles the economic markets and sends oil prices even higher.

Plus: - My nominee for the United States Supreme Court is Judge Ketanji Jackson.

- [Yamiche] President Biden nominates the first black woman to the Supreme Court.

Next.

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Once again from Washington, moderator Yamiche Alcindor.

- Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

This is an incredibly busy news week.

Tonight, we have two lead stories.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the historic nomination of the first black woman to the Supreme Court.

First, we begin abroad.

This week, the world is seeing the largest military attack in Europe since World War II.

Russia is attacking several of Ukraine's major cities by land, sea, and air.

The assault has left hundreds already injured or dead.

In response, President Biden and NATO leaders announced new sanctions aimed at stifling Russia's economy.

And President Biden promised the world will hold Putin accountable.

- We've now sanctioned Russian banks that together hold around 1 trillion dollars in assets.

Between our actions and those of our allies and partners, we estimate that we'll cut off more than half of Russia's high tech imports.

Will be a major hit to Putin's long term strategic ambitions.

- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pleading with the US and the west for more help.

- This morning, we are defending our country alone just like yesterday.

The most powerful country in the world looked on from a distance.

Russia was hit with sanctions yesterday but these are not enough to get these foreign troops off our soil.

- The mood in Ukraine is panic and resolve.

Some rush to banks to withdraw cash in the hopes of fleeing the country.

Others took shelter in underground subway stations, using them as bunkers.

Residents were encouraged by Ukrainian officials to take up arms to defend the country.

There are growing concerns the democratically elected government in Kyiv will be toppled.

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times; David Martin, National Security Correspondent for CBS News, and Ann Simmons, Moscow Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal.

She is joining us from Russia.

Thank you all for being here.

Ann, I want to start with you.

You are in Russia.

What do we know about the latest about what's happening on the ground in Ukraine?

And also, what is Vladimir Putin hoping to achieve both in the short term and in the long term?

- Well, it's clear that there's an all out assault on Ukraine by Russian forces by land, by air, by sea.

Mr. Putin has made clear that his end goal is basically regime change.

He wants to take the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

He has made clear that he wants to get rid of President Zelenskyy and that he wants to install basically someone who'll be a bit more favorable to the Kremlin.

- And you're talking about sort of him wanting to install someone and really, in some ways, take away the democratically elected government there.

Really quickly, briefly.

Also, when you think about sort of the rationale behind this, how he wants to be viewed by the history books, take us inside Putin's thinking on that front.

- It's really difficult to get inside Mr. Putin's head, that's for sure.

But the one thing that's clear is that he wants to make Russia great again.

He's always made that clear.

He wants to reestablish Russia on the global stage as a superpower.

He has always thought that there are only two countries that the world should be listening to, or at least should have a say in terms of the world order.

And those countries are Russia and the United States.

There was a great humiliation after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Mr. Putin, as you know, was a KGB officer.

And he really felt that the Russian empire still needed to exist.

And he has been trying, ever since coming to power, to basically reestablish Russia.

Ensure that Russia still has respect on the global stage.

- And David, Ann's talking about sort of making Russia great again.

You've been covering the Pentagon since just a few years after the Soviet Union collapsed.

I wonder, when you look at this situation, how quickly could Ukraine become fully under control of Russia?

Also, when you think about it, what happens next?

And how long could this occupation go forward?

- Well, the original fear was that Kyiv, the capital, could fall within a day or two.

The Russians are not advancing as quickly as they thought.

The Ukrainians are fighting.

And the Russians may well have underestimated the opposition they are receiving from the Ukrainians, but we shouldn't fool ourselves here.

Russia has only committed about a third of those 150,000 plus troops that had amassed around the border.

So it has much, much more firepower that it can roll in against Ukraine.

So what Russia calls the correlation of forces still heavily, heavily favors Putin's side.

And Zelenskyy knows this.

I mean, he's telling his people tonight, this could be the night that decides the fate of our country.

Now the question is, is the fall of Ukraine, the deposing the Zelenskyy government, installing a puppet regime, is that going be enough?

Or is Putin gonna feel compelled to eliminate every last pocket of resistance in Ukraine?

In which case, this battle could go on for certainly days, if not weeks.

- And David, you said that Russia has more firepower.

Is there thinking that he could be moving into possibly NATO territories later on?

And does that change the calculation for American military troops who are not, President Biden has said, going to fight in Ukraine to defend that country's sovereignty?

- I don't think there's a fear that he is going to move into NATO countries, because that's a whole different ballgame.

But the concern is that he is going to permanently station troops in both Ukraine and Belarus.

And that will radically redraw the military map of NATO.

And that is why the US and other NATO countries are activating this response force to put thousands more troops up closer to what will be the new front line with Russia, in countries like Poland, Romania and the Baltic states.

- And Peter, as we talk about sort of the military options here, sanctions have now been imposed personally on Vladimir Putin from the US and from the EU, can you talk a little bit about what especially President Biden hopes to gain from these sanctions.

And also what's the next step?

If things continue to deteriorate and these sanctions don't change Russia's calculations and their actions.

- Yeah, I think going after President Putin is a big step.

It's something that wasn't done even during the Cold War.

Traditionally you don't sanction heads of state , it has been done before, but usually in very, you know, limited circumstances with rogue states.

Not with something as large as Russia.

And so what they're saying is that they're making a statement, they're going after Putin where they think he is most vulnerable.

And that is, of course, the ill-gotten gains that he is believed to have stashed in various places around the world.

Now, the trick here is that President Putin knows that this is what the West would or could do.

He's known that for weeks and he's already figured that into his calculus.

And when he made the decision to go into Ukraine, he already figured that this is a trade off he was willing to live with.

And so while these sanctions may serve as a punishment and maybe, you know, increase the cost of this action by President Putin, they're clearly not a deterrent.

They're clearly not going to stop him at this point in the process.

You heard President Biden say a couple days ago, I think a day ago, actually, it seems like forever, was that he's gonna give it a month or so to see how these sanctions, you know, are affecting Russia.

And we'll see whether that changes the calculus, but at the moment, this is something President Putin expected.

This is something he's willing to live with.

And so that's not gonna change the action on the ground, it doesn't look like - And Ann, in talking about sanctions, Russia, you told our producers, has gone to great lengths to make its economy sanction proof.

Have we heard anything specifically from Vladimir Putin in response to him being personally sanctioned?

And I also wonder, what are the domestic challenges for him when you think about the fact that there are protests going on in Russia and there might be body bags coming back to Russian communities.

- This is not good for Vladimir Putin, of course, you know, he needs the public on his side.

He has made very clear that he feels that many Russians, most Russians are behind him.

And in the beginning before the invasion, polls actually showed that more than half the Russian population actually agreed with giving independence to Eastern Ukraine, the Eastern Ukrainian Donbas region, which Mr. Putin recognized as independent to break away regions there.

So he really feels that, yes, I have the Russian people on my side.

Nevertheless, it also depends on what Russians are actually seeing.

State media here has, you know, basically jumped on this narrative that Mr. Putin is pushing, that Russians are at risk, they're at threat in Ukraine.

There is a genocide, he has said, against the Russian speaking population there.

He has said they are discriminated against.

And that really does play to Russian sentiments on TV.

You do see that there is shelling of cities in Ukraine, but the commentary is that the targets being hit are unknown targets.

And definitely that the commentary is that Ukrainians, the Ukrainian public is not being targeted.

That civilians are not the target or in the way of Russian forces.

Now, Mr. Putin is taking a bit of a gamble here because there have been some protests on the street.

On Thursday evening, for example, there were at least 2000, almost 2000 arrests of people.

Or detentions, I should say, of people who went out onto the streets to protest and to say no to war.

And this was across around 58 different cities in Russia.

And there were 900 detentions alone in Moscow.

Those people are very brave because it's not possible, it's very dangerous to protest in Russia.

There is repression, there is a crackdown.

So there is this underlying kind of feel that among Russians, that not everyone is buying into the narrative.

One last point I'll make, there has been a petition on change.org, basically calling for no war.

And that petition is growing.

It shows that there is this wave in Russia of people who say no to war and that this is not what we are doing.

We don't deserve this, it is the government.

It's not the people of Russia.

- Yeah.

And David, I want to come to you because in his speech announcing these military actions toward Ukraine, President Putin talked about the fact that people who were trying to interfere will suffer consequences like we've never before seen in history.

Obviously, Russia is a nuclear power.

Talk a bit about sort of the concern there when it comes to nuclear weapons being used, or even the threat of nuclear weapons being used.

- Well, and that was an obvious threat to use nuclear weapons.

And it was certainly not a coincidence that in the days before the invasion, he conducted a nuclear exercise and was made sure to be seen on television observing the exercise.

He has deterred the United States from intervening to stop this invasion of Ukraine because of the threat of nuclear weapons.

The US is just not going to risk the fact that he might use a nuclear weapon to defend Ukraine.

We support Ukraine, but the president made it very clear, right from the start, US troops were not going into Ukraine, even to rescue trapped Americans.

Just on the chance that they would somehow get caught in the crossfire between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

So, you know, the US has been using economic sanctions in an attempt to deter Putin from invading.

But the country that's really been deterred here is the United States with the threat of nuclear war.

- And Peter, when you think about the other challenges that president Biden is facing, there is the economic challenges.

How could this invasion possibly impact Americans especially at the gas pump?

And what is the White House planning to do about that, briefly?

- Yeah.

It's not a good timing for President Biden.

He'd like obviously to get the economy doing better, particularly on inflation energy costs.

And now there's a risk that that will go the other direction.

You've seen the markets roiled in the last few days, you see the price of gas coming up at the pump, and the president's warned Americans that they're going to have to expect to absorb a little pain here.

Russia is one of the largest energy producers in the world.

We don't get a lot of it here in the United States from Russia directly, most of that goes to Europe.

And they're obviously more on the front line in that regard than the United States is, but the world energy markets are fungible.

And if the price goes up elsewhere, it will go up here as well.

And that's a problem for President Biden because he's already sort of lagging in the polls.

He's in the mid forties approval rating.

And he would've liked to have been able to spend this time focusing on, you know, curbing COVID and getting the economy in better shape, rather than confronting Russia and looking for the economic cost here at home.

- And Ann, really briefly, there's obviously a humanitarian crisis playing out in Europe.

Just want to have you look forward for a bit about the the sort of new world order that we're seeing play out before our eyes?

- Well, it's certainly turning into a kind of geopolitical disaster.

There is a humanitarian crisis brewing because you have at least a million Ukrainians on the move and it will not be contained if this war continues.

Obviously, there's no doubt that other countries are going to be involved, drawn in, unwittingly, unwillingly some cases.

- [Yamiche] Yeah.

- So this is really important.

- Well, very scary and something that we'll continue to be covering.

Thank you so much, David and Ann for joining us and for sharing your reporting.

On Friday, President Biden announced that he is nominating Federal Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson to the Supreme Court.

A Miami native and a graduate of Harvard Law, She would be the first black woman, and is the first black woman, to be nominated to the Supreme Court in its 233 year history.

- I am truly humbled by the extraordinary honor of this nomination.

And I am especially grateful for the care that you have taken in discharging your constitutional duty in service of our democracy with all that is going on in the world today.

- Joining us now to discuss President Biden's pick, Juana Summers, Political Correspondent for NPR.

Juana, thank you so much for being here.

So what made President Biden select Judge Jackson and talk about the significance of this moment, given the fact that black women for decades, hundreds of years were blocked from even being nominated to Supreme Court?

- Yeah.

It's hard to ignore the history of the date that president Biden made this announcement.

It is exactly today two years from the date that President Biden on a debate stage, signaled to the country and the party that he would name a black woman if he was elected president to serve on the Supreme Court.

And that is, frankly, a big deal.

Now, Judge Jackson has been kind of at the top of the list of names that have been percolating around for some time now.

She is known for her temperament.

The President was reportedly looking for someone who had the same temperament as Justice Breyer who announced his retirement.

Interestingly, who Judge Jackson also clerked for when she was younger, back in the late nineties.

One of the things that I think is very interesting about her background is the fact that she spent two plus years as a public defender, a background that she shares with President Biden who also did so briefly.

And that means if she's confirmed to the high court, she'll be the first justice on the court to have extensive criminal justice experience, I'm sorry, criminal defense experience, since Thurgood Marshall.

And I think that says a great deal and is very in sync with the priorities we've heard from this White House, as well as from then-candidate Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

- And the other thing of course that's happening with this historic pick, is that Republicans are going after her.

One, saying that it's discriminatory to say that President Biden wanted to name a black woman.

But also after she was picked specifically, we had the GOP calling her radical.

What's the White House plan for pushing back on that?

- So one of the things that we heard today that I think is really interesting in the announcement and the remarks from the president is that he pointed out the fact that she is coming from a family with extensive law enforcement.

One of her brothers, in fact, was in law enforcement here in the city of Baltimore where I live.

And there was a glowing statement, in fact, that came out from the head of The Fraternal Order of the Police, one of the largest law enforcement groups in this country, that made the point that Judge Jackson will, they believe she will rule fairly.

So that's one thing.

Liberal groups right now are also out with a lot of ads that are pointing out that she has a bipartisan record of being confirmed.

They focused on the fact that, in her most recent confirmation, she got three Republican votes in support.

So this has been a bipartisan record of supporting this judge.

I think they're really going to lean into that here, that she is someone who is fair, who does not see things in blacks and white, who can navigate those shades of gray and that will rule fairly and in a manner that is nonpartisan.

- And Peter, there is also a history that you've talked about on this show about thinking about identity.

And when you think about nominating a Supreme Court Justice.

This was not the first president to do that.

Talk about that history briefly, but also how quickly is the White House trying to get this confirmation done?

I think we have about a minute left but I want to give it to you, of course.

- Right.

Well, there is a history, of course, of looking for firsts on the Supreme Court.

Ronald Reagan said in his campaign, 1980, he would appoint the first female Justice.

He did, that was Saturday O'Connor.

Other presidents have made similar promises over the years and fulfilled them.

So it's not a unique situation here.

Even Mitch McConnell said he had no problem with President Biden making that promise and fulfilling it.

He doesn't mean he is gonna support her.

And that is obviously going to be an issue.

But I think you're right, President Biden would like to get this done quickly.

He'd like to get the win.

He'd like to get this settled.

Particularly when you've got a 50 50 Senate, you can see how even a single vote can change the dynamics in a very quick way.

- [Yamiche] And with the just 10 seconds that we have left, do we think that they're gonna get Republicans voting for her?

- Well, as you point out, there are three Republicans who did, and probably one or two of them.

Lindsey Graham sort of sent a mixed message today.

So it's not entirely clear.

He's disappointed it wasn't Judge Childs from his state.

- Yeah.

Well, there's gonna be a lot of talk about sort of her history, what she did, sort of her judicial history.

It's gonna be very interesting to watch her navigate this process.

Thank you so much to Peter and to Juana for joining us and sharing your reporting.

I will continue our conversation, we will continue our conversation on the Washington Week Extra.

Find it on our website, Facebook, and YouTube.

And tune in Monday to the PBS News Hour for on the ground reporting on Russia's assault against Ukraine.

And finally, this week marks the 55 year anniversary of Washington Week.

The program debuted in 1967 and has had nine moderators.

This is the longest running primetime news and public affairs program on TV.

We are very proud of that.

And after a week like this one, I personally am proud to keep gathering with our guest journalists every Friday.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Good night from Washington.