Welcome to Pushback. I'm Erin Mate. President Biden, in one of his first acts in office,

has committed to renewing the New Start Treaty, the treaty that imposes the last remaining limits

on the nuclear weapons arsenals of the U.S. and Russia.

The treaty was just days away from expiring after the Trump administration refused to

renew it and stalled negotiations.

While saying that it will renew new start, the Biden administration also promised that it

would conduct an intelligence assessment of various allegations against Russia,

including the recent Solar Windshack, and potentially impose new costs on Russia in response.

The president has long been clear that the New START treaty is in the national security

interests of the United States. And this extension makes even more sense when the relationship with Russia is adversarial as it is at this time.

Even as we work with Russia to advance U.S. interests, so too we work to hold Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions.

And to this end, the president is also issuing a tasking to the intelligence community

for its full assessment of the solar winds cyber breach, Russian interference in the 2020

election, its use of chemical weapons against opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and the alleged

bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Well, joining me is Bill Arkin, a veteran reporter who covers national security for Newsweek.

Bill Arkin, welcome to pushback.

Thanks for having me on, Aaron.

You have covered nuclear weapons for a long time.

You even broke a very key story about Trump policy on nuclear weapons during his administration.

Now that Biden is in and he's renewed new start, which was just days away from expiring,

what is your response?

Well, we certainly need to have strategic arms control.

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