As we reported, some of the president's staunchest allies stood behind his actions in the Oval

office today, but Ukraine supporters within the Republican Party have expressed concerns about

how that meeting played out. Joining me now to discuss is Republican Congressman Mike Lawler.

He's a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, welcome back to the

Newshour. You said in a statement after that

White House meeting that it was a missed opportunity for both countries. What did you mean by that?

Well, this was an inflection point, certainly today, and an opportunity for greater economic

cooperation between the United States and Ukraine. And ultimately,

with that, would have come greater security cooperation because you would have had U.S.

investment on the ground moving forward. You would have had U.S. personnel there. And ultimately,

obviously, I think once a ceasefire agreement reached,

it would have been extremely difficult for Vladimir Putin to go back on that. We can still salvage

this, and it needs to be salvaged because, obviously, failure here would be catastrophic for Europe and the free world. If Vladimir Putin is

successful and does in fact ultimately seize control of Ukraine, that would have devastating

consequence for years to come, but especially for Eastern Europe.

So from my vantage point, this was a missed opportunity.

You know, diplomacy is tough.

And sometimes there's going to be tension and disagreement.

And the sausage making is ugly.

But, you know, this was just unfortunate that it spilled out into a public view

as they work through some of the disagreement. Well, for it to play out so publicly and on

live television, we know everyone, including the Russians, were watching and many of them

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