oh [Music] [Music] two minute warning to briefing two minute warning to briefing thank you yes today let's touch um that way yesterday yesterday um [Music] that's literally exactly oh honestly would just try silent little tears right here [Music] okay back by popular demand um if he decides he's not going to be an economic expert anymore he might have a future in our business um or in our in the press office um so back to leap is back he's going to give some brief comments at the top take a few questions then we'll do some briefing after then and i'll just stay at the top for anyone who needs to leave for tv feel free to go it's all fine i will turn it over to delete now thank you jen good to see all of you again but this is a briefing i never wanted to give i'd like to start by saying the prayers of the entire world are with the people of ukraine today as they suffer an unjustified unprovoked and premeditated attack by the russian military forces president biden has said from the start of this crisis if putin chooses to invade the cost to russia will be immediate and profound to its financial system to its economy to its technology base and to its strategic position in the world as the world has now witnessed putin has made his choice he rejected diplomacy and chose war and today the president has announced our response because of putin's choices his flagrant violation of international law and his utter disregard for the principles that underpin peace and security across the world we will now ensure his decision is remembered as a strategic failure today we impose an unprecedented package of financial sanctions and export restrictions in lockstep with our allies and partners that will isolate russia from the global financial system shut down its access to cutting-edge technology and undercut putin's strategic ambitions to diversify and modernize his economy let me walk you through a few specifics and i'll be happy to take questions on financial sanctions i stood at this podium on tuesday and said uh we would impose the most severe sanctions ever levied on russia if putin proceeded with the invasion today we're following through we will impose sanctions on russia's two largest financial institutions spare bank and vtb which together hold more than half of the russian banking system's assets over 750 billion dollars in total for vtb we will freeze all of its assets touching the us financial system and prohibit u.s persons from doing any business with the bank for spare bank we will sever its access to the u.s financial system we'll also freeze the assets of and prohibit any business dealings with three additional russian banks with combined assets of over 70 billion dollars we'll also restrict u.s investors from
providing debt or equity financing for 13 of the most critical russian state-owned enterprises which combined have estimated assets nearing 1.5 trillion dollars and finally we'll also impose sanctions on the executives at these state-owned institutions as well as additional russian elites who are complicit in putin's kleptocracy and their family members those who've shared in the kremlin's corrupt gains and stored their wealth in yachts and luxury condos and fancy cars will now share in the pain of these measures in terms of the financial impact as i said these are the most impactful and significant sanctions the u.s has ever taken but financial sanctions are just one part of our response we're also unveiling today an expansive and unprecedented set of export restrictions developed in historically close coordination with the european union australia japan canada new zealand the united kingdom and taiwan these new measures include sweeping restrictions on russian military end users to impair putin's military capabilities and will also deny exports across russia to sensitive cutting edge technology primarily targeting russia's defense aerospace and maritime sectors in total the united states and our partners will effectively be cutting off more than half of all high-tech imports going into russia this includes curbing russia's access to advanced semiconductors and other foundational technologies that russia needs to diversify and modernize its economy working in tandem these financial sanctions and the export controls will undercut putin's aspirations to project power on the world stage and those impacts intensified dramatically just today the russian stock market plunged over 30 percent at one point before being halted by local regulators russia's currency the ruble weakened to its weakest value on record against the dollar before the central bank intervened and the price the market is charging the russian government to borrow is now above 15 percent these impacts over time will translate into higher inflation higher interest rates lower purchasing power lower investment lower productive capacity lower growth and lower living standards in russia to be clear this is not the outcome we wanted it's both a tragedy for the people of ukraine and a very raw deal for the russian people but putin's war of choice has required that we do what we said and to ensure this will be a strategic failure finally let me just say a few words about the impact of russia's choices on the u.s we've intentionally scoped our sanctions to deliver severe impact on the russian economy while minimizing the cost to the u.s as well as our allies and partners
to be clear our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow of energy from russia to the world we've carved out energy payments on a time-bound basis to allow for an orderly transition of these flows away from sanctioned institutions and we provided other licenses to provide for an orderly wind down of business let me just stop there and take your questions i just had a real quick question you said it would take some time before it affects the economy inflation what's the timetable how long do you think it will take until you have demonstrable results well look these are these are costs that build over time and as i mentioned i think last friday any leader whether you're an autocrat or a small d democrat has to pay attention to the living standards of your country and already we're seeing the effects of these measures and the signaling that we provided over the last three months before these sanctions were implemented inflation in russia was 8.7 percent the government's borrowing costs had spiked above 10 the ruble had lost almost 15 percent of its value and today those those costs escalated dramatically now it's going to be up to president putin to decide ultimately how much cost he's willing to bear but we control is to make sure this will be a strategic failure not just because of the sanctions but also because of the export controls because of europe's accelerated diversification away from russia in terms of its energy supply due to our fortification of nato's eastern flank and due to the renewed energy and unity and determination by the west to stand up for our values and advance our principles to confirm you're in it for the long haul right it's i mean you're until you see the results that you want we understand that these costs will accumulate over time you've just laid out all of the actions that the us that our allies have taken at this point as you understand the questions though at this point are about the actions you have not yet chosen to take at this point specifically the swift system and sanctioning president putin specifically himself what are the uh triggers at this point are there actions that president putin might still take you're expecting that would trigger those sanctions or what are the potential complications especially about sanctioning putin personally so i understand a lot of questions about swift and about sanctioning president putin and lots of other measures that could be mentioned but let me say this i think today was a demonstration that we mean what we say we delivered on what we said we would do in terms of imposing costs so when we say all options are on the table and that we're prepared to continue to ratchet costs higher it would be a mistake to doubt that resolve but let me let me also step back and say that when we consider which sanctions to apply we're not cowboys and cowgirls pressing a button to impose costs we follow a set of principles we want the sanctions to be impactful enough to demonstrate our resolve and to show that we have the capacity to deliver overwhelming costs to russia that's one number two we want them to be responsible to avoid even the perception of targeting the average russian civilian and of course unwanted spillovers back to the us or the global economy number three we want to stay coordinated and so we calibrate our sanctions to maximize the chance that we move in lockstep with our allies and partners number four they should be flexible so that we can escalate or de-escalate depending on backs on the ground and lastly as i mentioned before they have to be sustainable these sanctions work over the long term that's what will guide our design [Music] in light of the sanctions that were announced against individuals and entities in belarus can you tell us whether there are sanctions against any other countries that are being seriously considered at the moment and what is the line that a nation would need to cross in this conflict for them to uh rece be on the receiving end of sanctions from the us well the belarus measures were about delivering cost to a country that aided and embedded what we saw uh yesterday and overnight but i have no nothing else for you in terms of other countries uh being targeted jj oh do you have a question oh yeah yeah definitely i know i didn't mean i was not using the arms here you want to come through i wanted to ask you about the some of the carve outs uh there are general licenses for more than a dozen areas agriculture energy and you just said that the importance is to limit the impact on americans but i was hoping that you could say is there a percentage that you can share of the number of exemptions that make up the overall transactions so the general licenses how many how many tr what percentage of the transactions are under those licenses i i would refer you to treasury nofak for the for the details on what what exactly uh is being exempted and the percentage of business that would be a third is it included half i mean is it a small percentage is it a high percentage i would go back to the the principles of our design the measures themselves and the exemptions are balanced so that we can deliver overwhelming costs while not having unintended consequences and so that's the that's the principle but as to the specifics i'd refer you to treasury wouldn't the oil be a large percentage i mean considering how important it is to uh to russia's bottom line well look um where we have an asymmetric advantage is in foreign capital and cutting edge technology um so that's where we're that's where we're delivering the most concentrated impact when it comes to energy this is the one area this is the one area where russia has systemic importance in the global economy we know it's the second largest natural gas producer in the world it's also the second largest crude oil producer in the world um that's not to say that we have a dependence on russia russia depends on those revenues just as much as the world needs its energy but we're not gonna we're not gonna do anything which causes an unintended disruption to the flow of energy as the global economic recovery is still underway thanks two quick questions one if putin takes key does that trigger additional sanctions specifically that scenario uh not going to speculate on particular hypotheticals and you you mentioned the timeline you've been asked about the timeline the president said and one of the answers to his questions today said let's have a conversation in a month to see if these sanctions are working but my question is what happens in the meantime russia is taking over parts of ukraine major parts of ukraine as we speak so the world just sits back and watches that happen until these sanctions take effect look we can't dictate putin's actions what we can do is what's with our control and to make sure this is going to be a strategic failure for russia and so over the course of the next month what you can expect is that we'll see an intensifying negative feedback loop in russian markets and i've described the elements of that you'll see record capital outfla capital record capital outflows you'll see a weaker currency you'll see higher inflation you'll see lower purchasing power you'll see lower investment and that negative feedback loop the velocity of it is going to be determined by putin's own actions and so that's what you should expect on the financial side sanctions front on export controls what you can see is that over time this is going to atrophy russia's capacity to diversify outside of just oil and gas and to modernize the strategic sectors that putin himself has said he wants to develop aerospace defense i.t lasers sensors these sectors all depend on foundational technologies designed and produced by the west you will begin to see a chilling effect take hold in russia as those inputs are denied thank you for weeks now administration officials have repeatedly said yourself included that these sanctions are meant to deter and prevent putin from moving forward from acting can you help us understand why the president said today that no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening and then secondly on a quick one on putin sanctions without talking about when you might trigger them can you help us understand what harm they would do to him personally if you were to sanction putin look on your first question we don't usually engage in um hypotheticals up here at this podium but let's play this out had we had we unleashed our entire package of financial sanctions preemptively i think a couple of things might have happened number one uh president putin might have said look these people are not serious about diplomacy they're not engaging in a good faith effort to promote peace instead they're escalating and that could provide a justification for him to escalate and invade secondly he could look at it as a sunk cost in other words president putin could think i've already paid the price why don't i actually take what i paid for which is ukraine's freedom so that's that's what we wanted to avoid look ultimately ultimately the goal of our sanctions is to make this a strategic failure for russia and let's define a little bit of what that means strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory that's what putin has done in this century power strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength by technological sophistication and your story who you are what your values are can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill and on each of those measures this will be a failure for russia but did you but is it fair to say no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything you certainly expected that right look we signaled as clearly as we could what was coming if russia proceeded with an invasion um you know as i mentioned before economic costs of this severity generally matter to any leader because of the effect it has on on his people's living standards in this case putin made the wrong choice has been pressuring allies to still reject russia from the swift system can you say if the u.s is still intensely working to pressure allies to do the same how intensely are you guys i can't comment on what the uk's position is i'm not i'm not going to speak to that but what i'll say is the sanctions measures we impose today i think without question were the most consequential ever levied on russia and arguably the most consequential ever levied in history if you look at the aggregate financial impact on russia so that's why we took the measures that we did and we did so because we could move in lockstep with our allies and partners and because we think the spillover effects will be manageable [Music] a realistic live round is the u.s really still making an intense effort for this or is it essential this being swift look again i'm just going to repeat all options are on the table and we're we're prepared to ratchet costs higher at a time and place of our choosing and you know president putin should take that seriously after what he saw today just two questions uh first if you were to sanction uh vladimir putin do you know where his money is not going to comment on that and secondly um if uh what is the message to russia at this point on what it would take to roll back and relieve some of the sanctions that you put in place today look the the road to diplomacy is always open diplomacy is never dead but in the current circumstance in the immediate aftermath of an invasion um that that option is not available right now we're imposing severe consequences on russia for its decisions uh if there were to be a shift in in russia's strategic choices that upheld core principles of respecting your neighbor's borders respecting your neighbor's sovereignty allowing countries to have the freedom to set their own course and their own destiny that would be a different situation but that's not where we are tyler um you uh suggested that there are things that still remain on the table but as you walk through the hypothetical scenarios of trying to keep diplomacy open um you you said that they have now crossed the line but if you're saying there's still more on the table do you expect things to get worse in the coming days that russia will continue to move forward is that the intelligence i know you guys have been quite transparent about the intelligence you have are you keeping things back because you think the situation is going to get worse i think we've we've been transparent in uh to a remarkable degree one aspect of that transparency is by saying we can't get into president putin's head and so your question requires me to speculate on on how he's thinking about next steps and i simply can't do that but just in terms of u.s intelligence and the way that you are planning out the different sanctions you have and and keeping things on the table is that a sense that it it will get worse because you want to hold things back look our job is to be prepared and manage risks all manner of risks uh and that's what we've been doing over the past three months as this crisis intensified we'll continue doing that last one the targeting the russian energy industry is totally off the table is that what you're saying believe what i'm saying is that our measures were not designed to disrupt in any way the current flow of energy from russia to the world now we have also said we're going to cut off russia's access to cutting-edge technology that technology can be used across many sectors uh and and so as it relates to russia's long-term productive capacity we are seeking to degrade that capacity but nothing nothing in the short term as it relates to energy thank you thank you appreciate it okay i know it's late but we will get to as many people as possible i just wanted to note a couple of things at the top for all of you one usaid put out an announcement that they've deployed a dart or disaster assistance response team to respond to humanitarian needs in ukraine this star team which is currently based in poland is working closely with european allies and partners who will be on the front lines of the response the team will lead the us government's humanitarian response to help address critical needs caused by russia's invasion of ukraine the dark comprises 17 disaster experts from usaid who are assessing the situation identifying priority needs to scale up assistance inside ukraine and working with partners to provide rapidly needed assistance to communities affected by the conflict i know a number of you have also asked me and we've tried to provide as much detail as possible about how the president has spent his time over the last period since last evening i think we put out a few details but just to reiterate for all of you he closely monitored the events on the ground from both the oval office and then back in the residence over the course of last evening we put out a few details last night including the fact that he spoke repeatedly with his national security adviser jake sullivan he also spoke with his u.s u.n ambassador linda thomas
greenfield before she gave that powerful speech at the u.n last night he received a briefing from secretary austin chairman milley secretary blinken and his national security adviser around 11 pm approximately last evening as well and as you know he also spoke with president zielenski he continued to monitor closely into the wee hours last night this morning as you all know he engaged or he met for just about an hour with his national security team which included both a full table in the room and full members from from the cabinet from the national security team on the screen during that meeting as a standard he received an update from of course defense intel his diplomatic team about the status on the ground and he has of course remained closely engaged with them through the course of the day as you know he also had a g7 meeting that lasted a couple of hours this morning and he also spent an hour this afternoon on the phone with the leaders leaders in congress democratic and republican leaders in congress briefing them on the situation on a secure call briefing them on the situation on the ground answering questions they had as well so that has been his day to date uh and he is continuing of course to focus on other priorities as president uh but why don't we go to you zeke thanks uh james picking you up on that uh has the president made additional foreign leader calls today has he spoken to the president zelinski since their caller there's not been another call to president zielenski i expect as as you have seen over the past several days he will continue to have calls with leaders we will keep you abreast as those happen and with the u.s government saying that it believes that the russian objective right now is to decapitate the ukrainian government does the u.s believe that president zlinski at this moment is safe we're not going to get into security uh security questions but we are in touch with president zielinski and we are uh working to provide him a range of support and uh presidency in addition to calling for uh the west to impose to cut russia off from swift and also proposed uh or called fort demanded i think it was used uh and its allies impose a new fly zone over ukraine i know the president has said that he won't put u.s boots on the ground in ukraine to fight russia is is ukrainian airspace is ukrainian airspace uh in play is that something that is subject to any discussions we've certainly seen i've seen we've certainly seen his uh his tweet uh or his request via tweet but i don't have an update on that request he said that's not off the table with no prizes again i don't have any updated on this point in time or status of the discussions go ahead thanks just to follow up on troops faster than a few cyber questions do you expect nato to call up a major response force and how many u.s troops
could be called to help in that effort that's really up to nato as you know we have a number of troops thousands of troops that are on call but that is a decision to make made by the nato alliance the president said if putin pursues cyber attacks against our companies our critical infrastructure we are prepared to respond so just clarifying does that first mean that there has not been any evidence of any cyber attack from russia against any american companies at this point not that we have identified or attributed at this point in time and can you i mean aside from past ones that you were fairly tracking yeah i guess i mean yeah 24. i understand can you explain more of the white house's thinking on kind of this debate in washington about whether a cyber attack against a nato ally would trigger an article 5 response a response from the alliance well that again is up to the nato alliance to determine but obviously a cyber attack does constitute an attack uh so that would certainly be a point of discussion among the nato members okay one more really fast on the us usaid disaster yeah my response you just mentioned a 17-person team is that enough i mean we're talking about we've heard you guys talk about the potential of hundreds of thousands of refugees right and i think that's an important point but what i what we're trying to do here is provide any incremental update on the status of what our work is and i'll just note and you may be fully aware of this but in terms of humanitarian assistance um we have been the biggest provider of humanitarian assistance to ukraine we've provided over 52 million dollars in humanitarian assistance to ukraine in the past year over the past few weeks we've committed additional funding and supplies to humanitarian organizations there's been a specific need and therefore a focus on support services food clean water hygiene shelter trauma primary health care are prepared and we are prepared to certainly provide a significant amount more so this is just one step obviously less than 24 hours after the events of last night and we will continue to plus up from here go ahead there are a number of protests within russia itself are you monitoring this what's your message to them well uh there certainly are and i know with everything going on this may not have caught everybody's attention but let me just note that you know today we're seeing russian people in the streets open letters from leading russian journalists cult and cultural figures denouncing president putin's war of choice and reports of russian mothers concerned about the reckless deployment of their sons to this fratricidal war i think it's important to remember back in 2014 when they didn't even acknowledge that they were sending russian soldiers they didn't even acknowledge when there were body bags coming back from ukraine into russia and there is an outcry in the streets by russian people by by more russian people than i think many would expect so despite putin's crackdown at home dissenting views remain and i think that's important to note to publicly protest against president putin and his war as a deeply courageous act their actions to the world that despite the kremlin's propaganda there are russian people who profoundly disagree with what he is doing in ukraine one more speaker pelosi is talking about sending 600 million dollars in lethal aid to ukraine is this something you support we are in conversations with congress and i mentioned the president spoke with leaders just earlier this afternoon i don't have an exact number but those are ongoing conversations about what needs the ukrainians have on the ground in a variety of categories security humanitarian other economic assistance go ahead does the us have any analysis to indicate that there is dissent or division within putin's government or is it your understanding that putin's government is united in this war it's an interesting question and jamie without getting into intelligence uh which obviously we look at um i mentioned obviously russians protesting in the streets that's not exactly what you asked about but if you watched uh the meeting the president president putin had with members of his national security team the other day it was quite striking the back and forth he had with his intel chief in that meeting and the the analysis of that is certainly can be done in an open source manner given it was quite public but i will leave outside analysis to uh to give further assessment of that and and as you know uh we are seeing ukrainians start to plea the country yeah is the u.s prepared to accept ukrainian refugees we are but we we certainly expect that most if not the majority will want to go to europe in neighboring countries so we are also working with european countries on what the needs are where there is capacity at poland for example where we are seeing a an increasing flow of refugees over the last 24 hours or through its flow of individuals i should say out of ukraine what their needs are and we've been talking and engaging with europeans about that for some time now part of what you're doing is to prepare for the united states to accept the president is certainly prepared for that but i would just note that because uh there are a number of european countries neighboring ukraine who have expressed an openness to it and we would anticipate many of them would want would want to go to european countries and just one more question uh the president of course has repeatedly said that american troops will not enter ukraine is there any scenario that has been discussed where that decision might be reconsidered the president has no intention of sending u.s troops to fight in ukraine that has not changed go ahead um this was asked the president earlier but i don't think we got a full answer yesterday uh vladimir putin said that he warned if uh others are involved of such consequences that you have never encountered in your history does the us understand that as a threat of using nuclear weapons um [Music] well we can't obviously get into the minds of president putin as much as he said that nor do we know all the specific details about his strategic posture but we don't see any increased threat in that regard at this point in time good uh just follow up on some of the cyber questions sure i know that you and others have talked about how the government is on alert for the potential of a cyber attack but can you share like are there any specific steps that are being taken that you can share that the us is doing to protect the infrastructure power grid u.s banks well i i would say one we've been uh there's been efforts that have been ongoing for some time since the beginning of the administration to harden um the private sector work the with the private sector in partnership to harden their cyber security protections we've actually seen a great deal of progress made in the financial sector it's it's one of the stronger sectors in terms of protections from a cyber front that we see out there so it's been ongoing for several months obviously when there are moments like this where we continue to watch and look for what the potential is we will we continue to re to engage closely with a range of industries about what they need to do about the potential threats um and that's something that happens obviously privately and through a range of agencies i can see if there's anything more specific that we can read out to all just real just real quick one follow uh president biden said they are that the u.s is prepared if an attack comes here
would uh pardon me he said prepare to respond would that response be a cyber attack a cypress yes would that be an equivalent cyber attack against russia well i would say that uh the president reserves the option to respond in any manner of his choosing overt or covert seen or unseen as we like to say in more available english but i'm not going to get into specifics of what that looks like uh he has a range of options go ahead thanks on oil prices in the spr does the administration have an oil price in mind that would trigger another release from the spr i think not that we're going to get into detail or from here uh jj i understand certainly the question um what you heard the president talk about today and i can just reiterate a little bit is that what has been ongoing both from the president who's been very engaged in this having conversations with leaders in the middle east and other parts of the world as well as many members of his national security team taking whatever steps we can to mitigate the impact on the global oil markets and obviously that means increasing supply obviously a coordinated release from the strategic petroleum reserve would be part of that but in terms of what that looks like or the specifics i'm just not in a position to get into more details at this point thanks if the worst happens in russia either reduces the flow of natural gas or cuts off energy altogether to europe does the administration have a good idea for how long households in europe could last under that kind of circumstance i i don't have an assessment of that from here i can certainly check with our economic team one thing i will say that one of the steps we've been taking obviously natural gas shortages and supply is it is an enormous regional issue one that would hugely impact europe more than here of course one of the steps we've been focused on and been taking is engaging with partners who have uh who may have ex excess um lng supply like uh countries in europe japan for example where they had where we would were planning to give them some and now they're going to divert it to europe um so we've been working to to help mitigate any impact of a further invasion and a shortage in europe go ahead some of the activity that we've seen today in ukraine some of the clashes had been in and around chernobyl does the united states have an assessment of the risk of a radioactive release so i do have one actual update on that as well there's also been there was also a report out so let me speak to this first just so i don't forget um about um hostages around there as well so let me speak to that first we are outraged by credit credible reports that russian soldiers are currently holding the staff of the chernobyl facilities hostage this unlawful and dangerous hostage-taking which could upend the routine civil service efforts required to maintain and protect the nuclear waste facilities is obviously incredibly alarming and greatly concerning concerning we condemn it and we request their release in terms of a further assessment i don't have anything more on that from here you gave a read out of how the president spent past 24 hours or so first i wanted to ask about his call with president zielinski did he indicate if he was still in keeve did he identify his location at this point we are aware of where he is located um and we are in touch with him i would say on that call uh what uh what they discussed is uh president zielinski's request for the president to be to condemn the actions of president putin and the russians and to engage with other global leaders about it and that's exactly what he's done we've seen a number of statements today from former presidents president obama president bush also saw former president trump on television talking about this has the president you mentioned during the afghanistan drought he had been in contact with his predecessors has he been in touch with any of his predecessors during this he has not been today and then in terms of another domestic priority that was potentially included in his meetings today uh given the situation his time and focus and attention on the supreme court uh excuse me on ukraine will this affect the timing of a supreme court announcement uh we are still on track to make an announcement before the end of the month we have to do a lot of things around here at the same time go ahead just to follow up on the cyber attacks and article 5 question i know you said that it's up to nato to decide but from a u.s perspective would any cyber attack against the nato ally trigger article five or would there be a measure for what what counts again this is a conversation we would have with our nato allies and partners i don't have more anything interesting to add to it and just to follow up on the supreme court um and you said you're on on track but has he made a final decision given there are basically two days left for the end of the month uh not a not a final final and no offer has been no job offer has been made go ahead thanks uh just a couple um are there any concerns or indications at this point that russia had prepared for the sanctions that you're putting in place and kind of developed preemptively ways to want that impact well it's an interesting question and it's and some of it is is hard because it's hard to get into the minds of president putin and the oligarchs around him uh one of the steps we tried to take is to uh you know as we were as we were contemplating the individuals we were going to sanction we we sanctioned family members as well because what we've seen the tactics they've used in the past is they've moved money around and resources around to family members and we tried to address that on the front end in terms of the banking the and the financial sector i mean it it accounts for such a large percentage of of how they do business that that is it would be a difficult thing for them to plan and plot against and if you look to uh just even the anticipation of the potential sanctions as dileep was mentioning you know the ruble is the worst performing currency in the world right now their inflation is has skyrocketed uh so we're even seeing in their markets the anticipated impact even before today and that's even before the actual squeeze on uh on the financial sector in the country uh so it it feels to me it'd be a little hard to plan around and plot around given the significance of what was done today and the fact that um when we sanctioning 10 10 of russia's financial institutions and these export control measures which essentially cuts president putin off from semiconductors and access to a range of technology he wants for the future those are difficult things to plug plan ahead for i guess secondly does he mistake to have any assessment for how china is reacting to this at this point whether they are willing to provide support to russia how much and has there been any kind of contact there to kind of attempt to move them off of any support well in terms of what impact they can have i mean china only accounts for about 15 percent of china and russia i'm not sure you can double check me on this about 15 of the global economy if you look at g7 partners in the us and europe it's about 50 right so they cannot cover uh what the impact of the sanctions that have been announced in coordination with europe would how they would impact russia you know i think from our perspective as it relates to china well i can't get into the heads of of what their thinking is you know this is a really a moment for china for any country to think about what side of history they want to stand on here um and you know that is certainly the the the case that we would make publicly and privately i think you saw that secretary blinken spoke with his counterpart just a couple of days ago uh you know the president certainly open to speaking with his counterpart but i don't have any prediction of that at this point in time or a timeline go ahead thanks jen over the past couple weeks as you've been sending the alarm on this you've put the sanctions package together done conducted the diplomacy with the russians and the rest of the world um how did the ukrainian government use that tie since they've been initially warned that this was a likelihood did they use that time wisely to prepare tell me more about what you mean exactly well uh you're seeing reports from uh uh the streets in russia of uh sorry in uh ukraine of people being surprised uh you had obviously uh local and national leadership in ukraine uh telling people to stay calm tournament to go to work even the day before uh the invasion began so were they properly prepared and was there more that they could have done in look i think it's not particularly constructive for us to give an assessment of that uh what uh what i can tell you is that our focus has been on providing up-to-date uh what has turned out to be quite accurate and transparent information about what the president putin has was preparing to do which is invade ukraine and we have been very clear with american citizens who are there we have been clear with our european partners uh four months now including ukrainian leadership uh so that has been what our focus has been um and you know we will remain a strong support supporter and partner of uh of uh president zilensky and ukraine moving forward go ahead thanks chad um following up on the sanctioned question yeah uh we have heard for weeks that these sanctions were at least in part a part of a strategy that was based on deterrence as well as prevention uh today with the president's comment that no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening moving forward do you expect this slate of sanctions to prevent any further advancement or aggression from russia well i would say that later in the later in the back and forth or the press avail he also said when asked if sanctions cannot stop president putin what penalty can and he said i didn't say sanctions couldn't stop him which leads me to believe that's not exactly what he meant he also went on to say the threat of sanctions and imposing the sanctions and seeing the effect of sanctions are two different things and the way we look at this broadly speaking and delete touch on this a little bit is that we do see them as having a deterrent impact right it doesn't mean they're 100 foolproof but if you um if there's a 95 chance of russia invading without the threat of sanctions and there's a 60 i'm making up these percentages just to make a point but uh and a 65 chance that they will with them you're obviously going to go with the threat of sanctions because you want to reduce the threat of an invasion so there is a deterrent we've seen at the deterrent impact work at times right um i'd also note that that we are very clear-eyed about the fact that president putin not just a few days ago i mean he gave the speech a few days ago where he questioned the legitimacy of ukraine as a sovereign country he's also talked about how the breakup of the soviet union was the worst thing that's happened that's a paraphrase um in recent uh you know in decades of history so we are clear-eyed about his ambition but what the other part of it that we are quite focused on is the consequences and the way we see it is you know as we've touched on a little bit inflation skyrocketing the ruble is the worst performing currency in the world it was his decision to go to war it's our choice to make him pay a price same with the global community and we believe these consequences are also going to have an impact just at the risk of repeating a question as well i mean the president did also say you know let's check in in a month and there has been some questions about time here it seems like this is a strategy to use these sanctions to put pressure on russia to eventually discourage them to pull out or to force them to pull out this this advance so what is the timetable here you think for when the russian government will start actually feeling the impact of these sanctions and possibly pull out well in many senses they're already feeling the impact i mean look at where the ruble is look at where inflation is look at uh where the markets are in russia in terms of how putin will feel the the impact we just sanctioned a range of oligarchs around him we sanction 10 financial institutions um these are all uh these are all significant um in enormous steps that are going to have an impact on him but in terms of the moment by moment i can't give you an assessment of that just off topic just uh there's been a lot of questions about refugees in the region yeah for ukrainians that are in the country yeah as the u.s especially after yesterday considering tps or any sort of protections sure as you know that's a decision that would be made through an interagency process led by the department of homeland security um and i don't have any prediction of that i mean i don't have any kind of prediction of that at this point in time obviously these these events are just unfolding as we speak that conversation i'm not going to give you any specifics on an internal process but i would just say again it's an interagency process and right now uh we're of course in the middle of an invasion and uh and a uh you know a war in uh in ukraine go ahead i think jen earlier you had said you have to do a lot of things at the same time one of those things of course is the state of the union next year can you tell us how the president this week has been preparing for that how much time he spent on this speech and how he's juggling that with this very busy schedule that you laid out earlier tonight yeah absolutely um so in addition to obviously uh being very closely engaged and leading the effort uh on the u.s response uh to the russia to russia the russian military invasion of ukraine the president has been working with speech speechwriters working with paul members of his policy team to finalize details of his state of the union doing starting to do some read-throughs not too many yet i expect those will increase in the days ahead i expect we won't have too much of a preview for you maybe tomorrow but maybe more likely this weekend he's also been engaging with his covet team talking about where we are in the state of the pandemic what's next in the pandemic he's been working closely with his economic team on uh and receiving updates on the supply chain the implementation of the infrastructure uh bill so even as we have all been understandably focused on the conflict in ukraine the president has been very hard at work on a range of issues that are vital to the american people my follow-up abc is reporting that the white house is revamping the cobit strategy now that hospitalizations are on the decline should we expect the president to roll that out in the speech next tuesday i don't have any preview for you on timeline or format um but uh the president has been working and engaged with his kova team uh for some time now uh and we're making strong trung progress on uh moving toward a time when covet is no longer a crisis the cova team has been spending a lot of time and energy including with the president working with experts inside and outside government local public health officials and governors and this work is broader than one piece of guidance how we look at it is we're preparing to stay ahead of the virus protecting our most vulnerable keeping our country open and that is and that is going to look at everything from the cdc is obviously reviewing mass guidance but also how we're going to ensure that vaccines boosters tests treatments and other us and other important components of our medicine cabinet are available to the american people go ahead thanks jen i had a couple of questions sure nobody except thanks i had a couple of questions first a follow-up about some of the humanitarian needs you've been talking about you've talked about how much money and supplies are going to be going but how are you going to ensure that those supplies get to the ukraine is there going to be some sort of air drop and would the president consider putting us boots on the ground for humanitarian needs to make sure they get to the people they need well we we do have fortunately or unfortunately a fair amount of experience on providing humanitarian assistance in conflict zones and we typically work in usaid specifically has a great deal of experience um with that working with trusted third-party entities obviously the government which remains in power so there's a range of ways that we would provide assistance in terms of other mechanisms i don't have anything to predict for you at this point in time and then another question for you and this has been happening why you've been up at the podium okay i'm not trying to ambush you but i wanted to give you a chance to respond um senator ted cruz is speaking at cpac and you came up he he called you quote unquote peppermint patty and has encouraged people to boo you i wonder don't tell him i like peppermint patty i so i'm not going to take it too offensively senator cruz i like peppermint patty i'm a little tougher than that but there you go go ahead hi yeah so um back to the president's comments earlier today so he did say to give it a month to see if these sanctions work however you know under russia's current assault ukraine clearly might not have a month or even weeks so is it fair to say that he is conceding ukraine to to putin there's nothing about the president's strategy or approach or leadership in the world building a coalition of uh the majority of countries uh you know in the western world uh to stand against the actions of president putin uh that that's that suggests that he is succeeding anything um you saw him lay out a set of of historic sanctions today that will maximize pain on russia yes as we've as we've conveyed they're meant to have a squeeze over the course of time but we're already seeing an impact on the financial markets on the currency on inflation in russia and there is a there are unfortunately the russian people are going to feel the pain of that so i would say the president is going to continue as he has for weeks now to work in close lockstep with european partners to continue to press to press from the global community uh for uh de-escalation as it relates to the events in ukraine go ahead thank you jen if president zielenski is in danger of being killed or captured and put on some sort of a show trial would president biden send u.s troops in on a rescue mission to get
him out again we are in touch with president zielinski who is an important partner we support him who he is the leader of ukraine governor the president of ukraine uh but i'm not going to get into security steps okay um there's this talk about a possible forecast for financial pain particularly at the gas pump for americans um the president said today the notion that this is going to last for a long time is highly unlikely would he try to ensure that by lifting some of the restrictions that he's put in place on the energy industry or rethinking some projects like the keystone pipeline well first of all the keystone pipeline is not flowing so i'm not sure how that would solve anything there's also plenty of oil leases that are not being tapped into by oil companies so you should talk to them about that and why but what the president's talking about is we certainly understand and he said this today right may have been in response to your question i don't remember but um if there's an invasion of another country by a big country there's going to be impacts on the markets right and we certainly anticipated that and we anticipate that as it relates to the global oil market as well so that's why the president for weeks now has been engaging with a range of big global suppliers some in the middle east others to see what we can do to ensure their supply out there in the market to reduce the impact on the american people and the us is one of the russian oil industries best customers hundreds of thousands of barrels per day would the president ever consider ordering u.s companies to stop importing russian oil i don't have any prediction of that at this point peter we announced some significant sanctions today our objective is to uh in to ensure there is the greatest economic pain on russia and not on the russian people but on president putin and to minimize the impact on the american people including companies here in the united states all right thanks everyone see you and try to tomorrow back the soviet union so is this do you all think this is act one in a multiple country invasion well i'm not going to make a prediction of that but we certainly think he has grander ambitions in ukraine does he believe that president putin is going to absorb ukraine into russia when he says that president putin wants to re-establish the soviet union is that what he's saying i think he believes that as we all do that president putin has more has grander ambitions in ukraine hence the military campaign is continuing thanks everyone thank you you
2022-02-26