CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript: Crimean Crisis

Interview

Our next guest has returned from Ukraine as part of a congressional delegation. Congressman Mike Quigley joined the bipartisan trip as both as fact-finding mission and a show of U.S. support for Ukraine's government. He joins me now. Welcome.

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D), ILLINOIS: Welcome. Thanks for having me. Good to be home.

COSTELLO: I bet it is. Things don't seem to be settling down in Ukraine at all. How would you characterize it?

QUIGLEY: It's clearly a country on edge. At the same time, talking to the public and cultural and political leaders, it is a country that is facing an underdog's role with extraordinary optimism.

COSTELLO: Well, it sort of seems the sanctions are working since Standard & Poor's slashed Russia's credit rating, a good sign at least from our perspective in the United States.

QUIGLEY: Sure. And the ruble is at an all-time low. Their stock market is down 20 percent. This is clearly a financial war that Putin can't handle. I'm not sure if he realizes that.

COSTELLO: He doesn't seem to care.

QUIGLEY: No, he doesn't seem to care. We met with Mr. Yanukovych's former chief. He explained -- he knew Mr. Putin pretty well in the old days. He thought that -- it was interesting. In Russia, if Putin takes and keeps Crimea, his name would be written in gold on the Kremlin wall, but that if he invaded in that he had ethnic Russians killing ethnic Russians, his name wouldn't be written on that wall. There are many who don't understand how far Putin is taking this action.

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