Welcome to Pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. Joining me is Andrew Coburn. He is the Washington editor for Harper's Magazine. And his latest book is Spoils of War. Andrew, thank you for joining me.

Hey, it's great to be with you. We are in the midst of this crisis over Ukraine, and one of Democrats' major priorities is pushing through more weapons sales to Ukraine.

And I was curious to get your perspective on what role the weapons industry has played in the current crisis.

Can you talk about that and how this major issue that Russia has wanting to keep Ukraine out

of NATO, how NATO expansion has been a boon for the weapons industry that you spent so much time

covering?

Absolutely.

Well, actually, I'm continually reminded, well, I remind myself of a story that's in the book, in Spores of War, which describes a meeting

held by the chairman of the House, one of the House military committees, actually it was the

Intelligence Committee, a breakfast, fundraising breakfast, a couple of days after Putin, the Russia took over

Ukraine, Crimea.

And there were a group of, it was mostly attended by defense industry lobbyists.

And there was a friend of mine who was also a lobbyist who was present.

And I was, I saw him later that day.

And he was telling me about this meeting.

And I said, well, how did it go?

What was the mood?

And he said, I'd call it borderline euphoric.

They were all so excited at this, you know,

the incredible possibilities have been opened up.

That now, you know, with Russia moving into Crimea, that, you know, obviously, you know,

the new Cold War could really ramp up. And so it's proved. You know, I know you've talked

...