Filling in for host Medhi Hasan, Steele said to his guest, “It’s being reported that Fox News and Tucker Carlson are working to secure an interview with Vladimir Putin,” citing Davis’s report that “Kremlin representatives actually think this would be a good thing for Putin.” He then asked if he found that frustrating,

“It’s not frustrating,” Cicilline replied. “It’s sickening. It’s un-American.”

“This is the same man who said, why aren’t we supporting Russia in this conflict? Russia and Ukraine are both foreign countries,” Cicilline continued. “The absurdity of not recognizing that one of them is a democracy where people have elected to turn to the west and don’t want to be part of Russia and the other is a thuggish dictator.”

“The idea that he thinks they’re the same is preposterous,” he added. “This is the same person who went to Hungary to interview Victor Orban, and I guess for his encore, he’ll have [Rodrigo] Duterte from the Philippines. It’s shocking, it’s embarrassing, he ought to be ashamed of himself.”