Leon Panetta: “If you develop that trust and respect that can give you a lot of leverage to be able to get things done.”

It’s poor planning to wind up with your stockpiles of key weapons being depleted.

I think the United States ought to be part and parcel of any agreement to be able to provide a security assurance to make sure that Ukraine is protected from the kind of invasion that we've seen from Russia.

And ... we’re going to have to respond. And right now, because our missile systems and our supply of weapons being down, this is a vulnerable period for the United States.

What Trump is trying to do in order to convince Putin to come to the table is not going to work if Putin senses weakness on the part of the United States.