Welcome to Pots in the World. I'm Ben Rhodes. And I'm Alex Wagner. Alex Wagner joins us today as our guest host. Thank you so much Alex who wears many hats.

Uh, co-host of Show Times hit show the circus brand new MSNBC contributor and guest host. Do you want to say a word about that? Yeah, I just, um, you know, I grew up at the MSNBC family in the MSNBC family and like the prodigal son I've returned.

And I'm now a, I think the official title is senior political analyst because I've gotten old in my time away. Wait a second. Wait a second. Do you know I'm a political analyst? Is that mean that you are senior to me officially? Yeah, I mean, we've always known it. But now it's going to be normal.

We've always known that I'm just a few notches above you have been because of all my experience in the White House and negotiating international agreements. That's why I get the senior title and you don't. Yes. And, uh, and I'm a guest anchor. So you'll see me in the anchor chair shortly.

Wow. Trying to fill other people's big shoes. The roles might be reversed. One of these days. You can ask me questions on MSNBC. Oh, I mean, that's why I took this gig to begin with.

Yeah. Yeah. And trying to get more TV time with you. Well, and people can follow you everywhere. Circus MSNBC. Sometimes for the Atlanta time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's always a good day when you and I share by lines on the homepage.

Yes. You're in the marketplace of ideas. Well, today we have a lot to talk about. We are going to obviously give the latest on the Russia Ukraine situation.

We are going to talk about the prospects of an Iran deal 2.0. We're going to check in on some crazy things happening in Canada. And with our friend, Boris Johnson in the UK.

We have an ISIS leader who was killed since our last podcast. So a lot to cover here. And then I, Alex and I will also be looking back at the one year anniversary of the tragic coup in Burma.

Then I'll be talking to the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kayakalis about her perspective as a NATO member bordering Russia. And as one of the younger and more dynamic leaders on the European scene.

But that leads us back to where we're going to start today, which is Russia Ukraine. So Alex, I'm just going to go through the latest. And then there are a couple of things I thought we could unpack.

Please do. The center of gravity is shifted to some extent to French President Emmanuel Macron, who flew to Moscow and met with Putin yesterday at a very large table, if you haven't seen the picture.

Maybe like a custom made table. It's so large.

I mean, I don't know if that was a social distancing thing, but it's a very big table. Anyway, it didn't appear to win that well. Macron said that there wouldn't be further escalation that Putin promised him that there would not be further escalation.

And that there'd be time to pursue diplomatic resolution.

The Kremlin, though, after Macron left, essentially said that he didn't have the status to negotiate the issues at stake because he's not the leader of NATO, making the point that the US has to be the one to negotiate on the terms of Russia's demands that NATO pull back basically to where it was in 1997 and not admit new members.

Macron, though, soldiered on. He went on to Ukraine today where he met with President Zelensky. From Ukraine standpoint, they reiterated what they called red lines, which is that there can't be any infringement on their sovereignty and that they get to determine their own foreign policy, which would suggest that they're not open to a pledge to never join NATO.

So it doesn't feel like we're any further to a resolution here. Meanwhile, President Biden met with the new German Chancellor Shultz, Otto Shultz.

I guess the headline coming at that meeting was Biden vowed that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that goes from that's scheduled to come online that takes gas from Russia to Germany won't happen.

It will be stopped one way or another, presumably either by US sanctions or by German action, if Russia does invade Ukraine. A lot of effort to try to project unity.

Biden said that he and Germany are in lockstep on this. Shultz reiterated that Russia would pay a high price if it invades Ukraine. But again, Germany has been a bit of an outlier in threatening stronger sanctions.

Mood music generally not great. The NATO Secretary General said that NATO itself is considering long-term adjustments to its posture, particularly in the east, which seems to run counter to what Russia wants, which is NATO not being present in the east.

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