Page 800 - Leverage News Today

Cocktails to protect their homes and kids from russian soldiers and joe biden and nato leaders are patting themselves on the back for how many zoom calls theyre having. the sanctions we announced were inadequate. not even a half measure. if you want to put real consequences on vladimir putin and think twice we need to sanction his oil and gas exports. i know that russia has got a lot of leverage over european countries. it is time for those european countries to recognize the mistakes theyve mad...

Or cut off completely. its a really difficult situation for the europeans and for us at the moment. when we lost our energy independence, we gave putin leverage. when we withdrew from afghanistan, in chaos, we looked like we were fumbling, looked like we were weak. you combine that original energy mistake with a withdrawal from afghanistan, and the weakness which we perceived about us, thats why putin is doing what he is doing. my personal opinion. >> ainsley: do you think the president will eve...

If russia escalates. this is really important here. leaving more fire power to try to contain the russian president. >> yeah. and president biden even telegraphed what the next step would be, that would be more sanctions targeting oligarchs, very wealthy politically powerful russians close to the president, vladimir putin. one way to look at it is, one, there are layers that clearly the u.s. and its partners have laid out to apply incrementally. each day perhaps as russia moves forward, but also...

Rules in our systems, nor will they have access to our economic means. weve got to be much stronger than we have ever been before because we have to prove that putin cannot do exactly what he did in georgia. hes using the exact tactics that he used in georgia. he went in, he has made the agreements with the separatists that he will put military bases now in ukraine, he will start hardening the borders. pond in ukraine, he will start hardening the borders-— the borders. and in terms of what wev...

Heard from republicans saying that sanctioning putin should be done immediately and building up energy independence to increase the leverage we have opinion putin to put strong sanctions in place without blowing back on european allies and then ideas on the democratic side like closing russian embassies or kicking out russian students in this country. what more needs to be done is an open question. >> you were working the phones, too. thank you very much. you are about to see ukrainians trying t...

Invasion? >> well, the sanctions package is continuing to be worked on, as you know, alex, last week the senate voted in a bipartisan way to send a very clear message that economic sanctions will be imposed on russia, but as the administration has asked for, they also want to be able to use the economic sanctions as leverage in this process to the very last minute to prevent war. that is what we need to be focused on and ultimately if russia, if president putin, chooses to invade ukraine and to ...

Nord stream from the equation, thats a by-product and a result of the work we have done together with the german government over the course of the last several months, over the course of the last year or so. >> correct me if i am wrong, but your argument is that if you had imposed the sanctions earlier the germans would not have -- the germans would not have done what they did yesterday or it would have been a much bigger lift to get them to do that? >> what we have said, and our strategy has be...

We need a comprehensive policy with diplomatic and military measures, as well as sanctions, vladamir putin is dictating pace of crisis and we have no leverage over his next move. >> carley: a lot recently just happened, new troops on the ukraine border, new field hospital was built. president biden pointed out they are moving blood in, which you dont do unless you plan to use it. ukrainians military partly cloudy ales in comparison to russia. does ukraine have any hope? >> russia is in the donbo...

Military operations. >> niqc, i want to focus on wha we heard from vice president kamala harris. she describes the situation as stronger than its been in a generation. she said, quote, our strength must not be underestimated. would you agree with that assessment because in the last few months there appears theres been disagreements over countries like germany and the united states and others over how to approach this russian threat. >> there have been some disagreements, and certainly russia wan...

Please stop the war. it is not how that system works. remember, a lot of these elites, we think of them as being like businesspeople and independent from the state. a lot of them have their money because putin put them in charge. the two largest banks that were sanctioned yesterday, both of them, the heads were put in those jobs by putin. they dont have any leverage against putin. thats the first thing. then the biggest thing, the second thing is you show these incredibly brave demonstrators tha...