more than half of the country
would be need -- in need of
humanitarian assistance.
President Biden also announced
the administration was looking
at ways to convert funds of
wealthy Russians.
New Jersey Democrat Tom
al-maliki as a cosponsor of the
bill that passed the house
yesterday.
He joins me now.
Welcome back to the program.
Your bill is nonbinding.
Why do you think that you should
go further and confiscate those
assets and convert them to help
Ukraine?
>> Putin has caused tens of
billions of dollars of damage to
Ukraine not counting the
horrific loss of life.
At the same time, the united
States and our allies have
frozen or blocked potentially
hundreds of billions of dollars
of Russian assets up to $300
billion of their central bank
assets not to mention yachts and
villas and ex-pence of that are
in fact the property of Vladimir
Putin.
It seems fitting and right that
we should be willing to use some
of that wealth to help the
country that Putin is
destroying.
We are not going to be returning
these yachts anyway.
Rather than letting them sit and
rot in a port somewhere, why not
use them to help the country of
Ukraine rebuilt.
>> As it possibly a slippery
slope for the congress to give
the power to the administration
to seize the assets of a country
that it chooses to confront and
then give those assets to
another country that that
administration chooses to
support?
>> I think this is a very unique
circumstance.
This is stolen money in the
first place.
It was stolen from the Russian
people by the Putin regime.
I think we also have to remember
the fact that we are complicit
in this corruption over many
years, the United States and our
European allies.
We have frankly welcomed the
answer of this massive wealth
from Russia into our real estate
and banks and hedge funds.
>> The aclu criticized an
earlier version of your bill for
not having enough due process.
Do you acknowledge their
concerns of going down the road
of the executive branch
identifying people to target and
taking their assets?
>> I acknowledge there is a need
to do this in a careful way but
at the same time, I think one
mistake we sometimes make is
that we apply an American
construct to a Russian reality.
An American lawyer might look at
a Russian oligarch who owns a
soccer team in England and say,
that guy is the owner of the
soccer team.
Anyone that understands how
Russia works would say, that guy
is not the owner of the soccer
team, it is the Russian state,
it is Putin who is the owner of
the soccer team.
These are pooled assets.
Let's not use our due process to
protect property that was stolen
without due process and is
financing the war that is
killing thousands and thousands
of Ukrainians.
And let's seize the opportunity
to be able to do something for
the people of Ukraine what the
wealth that contributed to the
attempt to destroy their
country.
>> You mention hundreds of
billions and even the central
bank reserves frozen.
We are presumably talking about
Russian oligarch money.
How much of that can the U.S.
Seize?
>> Most of it is outside the
U.S.
Maybe a few dozens of billions
of dollars if you count the
central bank assets available to
the United States but that is
not chump change.
The European union has also
started a discussion about
embracing a similar mechanism.
I think between the united
States and the European union,
there is a lot that we can do.
And yes, I asked secretary of
state blinken today whether this
principle that we are agreeing
on encompasses potentially
central bank assets and he said,
potentially yes.
>> President Biden sent to the
hill a supplemental which is
more than five times Ukraine's
annual defense budget.
Is there any number past which
it is becoming too expensive to
support Ukraine?
>> The Ukrainians are not just
fighting for themselves, they
are fighting for democracy.
They are fighting for a set of
rules and principles that
protect everybody including the
United States of America.
It is essential they win this
fight.
There is bipartisan support in
congress for doing what is