It's not often you hear President
Joe Biden and Senator Tom
Tillis agreeing on something,
but right now the Democrat and
the Republican are standing firm
together on our country's response
to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
American diplomacy matters.
American resolve matters.
Putin's latest attack on Ukraine was
premeditated and totally unprovoked.
He rejected repeated repeated
efforts at diplomacy.
He thought the western NATO wouldn't respond.
He thought he could divide us at
home in this Chamber in this nation.
He thought he could divide us in
Europe as well, but Putin was wrong.
We are ready.
We are united and that's what we did.
We stayed united.
We have to come together.
This is not a time when we have a threat
like we have in Ukraine and potential
threats are miscalculations that could
cause this to become a broader conflict.
This is not a time to be partisan.
This is a time to use every divisive power,
diplomatic and otherwise.
Working with our NATO partners
to deescalate the situation
and get Russia out of Ukraine.
I agree completely with what he said about
the 1st 10 minutes of his speech on Ukraine.
We need to we need to.
Come together, we need to work
with our NATO partners and allies.
I'm Ben Briscoe from now until six,
we're going to dig into America.
United response to Russian aggression.
We're going to look at what
we're doing now to punish Russia.
What our next steps could be and the
impact here at home from those efforts,
including gas prices and
Russia's threat of nuclear war.
Starting with Y scenario,
Tillis view on the topic.
Carry weight in Washington.
Obviously he represents North Carolina in DC,
but you might not know.
He is also the Co chair of the Senate, NATO.
Observer group.
He's even attended the
NATO conference before,
so he's one of the leading Republican voices
when it comes to the Russia Ukraine conflict.
The United States and our allies
have already hurt Russia's economy.
The sanctions in place now have caused the
value of Russia's currency to plummet.
You see, before the sanctions went in place,
it took 85 rubles to make a dollar.
Now it takes 102 rubles to make a dollar
to help really make that impact clear.
Think of it in terms of your
own wallet right now.
This iPhone 11 right here,
it costs you 499 bucks.
But if our currency dropped
the way Russia has so far,
well then the phone would cost you $602.00.
The Russian people they just can't afford
as much stuff anymore and that's it.
They can even get their hands on one
of these phones to buy being cut off
from the swift banking system has meant
that ordinary Russian citizens are
not able to buy international products
like the iPhones from the US cheese
from France or luxury goods from Italy.
And for those who invest
the Russian stock market.
Has lost a third of its
value over the past week,
critically,
Russia's expulsion from SWIFT
also means that Russians are
cut off financially from all of
their family who lives abroad.
Last night at the state of the Union address,
President Biden took the
sanctions even further,
I'm announcing that we will join our
allies in closing off American airspace
to all Russian flights, further
isolating Russia and adding
additional squeezed on their economy.
He has no idea what's coming,
and Senator Tillis says the longer this
invasion stretches on the more tougher
the sanctions should get from the US.
So I asked him today what
exactly should America do next.
This is the time to use every divisive
power, diplomatic and otherwise.
Working with our NATO partners
to deescalate the situation
and get Russia out of Ukraine.
More sanctions could get costly for the US.
Current ones already.
Our President Biden has said over
and over that freedom has a cost,
even though the sanctions target Russia,
it does impact us here at home to AAA,
says gas prices jumped $0.26 last month,
GasBuddy says some drivers pay 450
a gallon and GasBuddy doesn't see
prices coming back down anytime soon.
It's not yet known when we will
see an organized drop at the pump.
If the situation improves in
Russia dramatically, we could see
prices go down relatively quickly.
If something were to happen,
say overnight oil prices
could play on any development.
Any positive development in the situation.
Beyond that, I don't see a
normal decline in gas prices
until later this summer or fall
to try and counter the sanction issues.
President Biden announced a plan
to dip back into the oil reserves.
Worldwide, he hopes that will ease
supply issues and drop the price for you.
As we put more and more
squeeze on Russia, Senator Tillis
says we have to keep in mind how
unpredictable Vladimir Putin can be. They
are a nuclear power and I don't think he's
a particularly stable leader. Putin put
his nuclear forces on alert last week.
Most security experts think
it's just an empty threat to get
Ukraine's allies to back down.
The Arms Control Association
says Russia has the largest
inventory of nuclear weapons.
With about 6200 of them,
the United States is a close second,
with more than
5500. The White House
says it does not make sense
for Putin to use nukes.
Russia and the United States have
long agreed that nuclear use would
have devastating consequences
and have stated many times,
including earlier this year
that a nuclear war cannot be
won and must never be fought.
The question now is Putin,
a leader that makes sense?
We have to worry about his reaction
to losing. He's losing. He's already
demonstrated. And in Ukraine that
has aspirations to have superiority
in a matter of days or a week or so.
It's just not going to occur.
So we have to be mindful of that and use
diplomatic channels to try and deescalate.
We needed the escalate because there's
another concern from Senators Tillis
that the conflict will go beyond Russia.
It will expand out.
He worries that China could see a
reek response to Russia and try
to take over other countries.
That's why he supports strong
sanctions on Russia now
and for China to abstain suggests to me
that maybe they think there are certain
situations where a foreign nation like
China as Russia has done may invade a
sovereign nation and may take them over.
So I want to hold China accountable on this.
I want to hold Russia accountable with this.
Tiller says that's why it's so
important to use diplomacy to get
China on board against Russia.
Here, most politicians across the
aisle agree on sanctioning Russia.
The move is also really popular
among everyday Americans.
A CBS News poll found 3/4 of
people support economic sanctions
on both Russia and Putin among
both Democrats and Republicans.
There, more than half support sending
military aid and troops to Europe to
help defend our NATO allies too. And the US.
Is not going alone on this today.
the United Nations voted to condemn Russia.
Take a look every single one of these
countries with a green mark beside them
are on board calling out Russia and
taking steps towards making Russia's
brutal assault on Ukraine stop.