economy and russian forces continue their relentless attack on civilians, many of whom are simply trying to flee the war at this point. let s begin our coverage with cnn white house correspondent john harwood. he s live in the white house briefing room and here with me is cnn economics and political commentator catherine ranpal. a big change from days ago. what s gone on behind the scenes? reporter: what s gone on, kate, steadily over the last days of war, the window of possibility for what the united states, the european youunion a nato are willing to do widening with russian atrocities. starting with a milder set of economic sanctions, those are steadily gotten more severe, sanctions on the russian central bank, on major russian financial institutions, oligarchs and now this step, the allies have been especially reluctant to take
because energy prices are already high in the united states and in europe and they know that this step of banning american imports is going to have an effect, it s already had an effect on prices. nevertheless, politically, they don t have any choice because so much pressure has built up over russia s behavior that the resistance has crumbled to taking this step. we expect to hear from boris johnson, the british prime minister in this hour. european countries announce more graduated steps but this is a reflection of what russia is doing and even if it hurts politically and it will hurt politically the american administration, president biden feels it doesn t have any choice. catherine, as john was alluding to, the eu cutting gas imports from russia by two-thirds this year. what s the collective impact of this? the eu much more dependent on russian nsenergy, both russian s and oil. that s really painful for
wrong, polling has shown americans seem open to paying more at the pump, at least saying that maybe before it s happened, in order to do something to ukraine, to do something to stop vladimir putin, but gas prices and inflation in general are, have already been an issue for this administration, even before the war in ukraine. reporter: that s right. it s one thing to give that answer to a pollster saying, should you be willing to sacrifice to help ukraine, that sounds like the right answer. it s entirely another thing to consider the effect on public and political attitudes when those prices go up. there s nothing harder for a politician to do than to tell his constituents, i m doing something that s going to hurt you in the pocketbook. here s why it s worth it. that s the challenge facing joe biden right now. that s called leadership. catherine, is there a move for russia here? can russia retaliate? russia has already threatened to retaliate by saying you don t
want our oil? fine, we re not going to sell it to you. you don t want our natural gas? we re not going to sell it to you. more painful for europe than the u.s. because it s much more dependent on russia for energy. so putin could do that. it will be really painful for russia. so who knows if he s actually bluffing here. he s willing to endure the crippling facts it would have on the life blood of his economy, but this is not a rational guy. that s what we ve learned day after day in this war, that it s very hard to reason with him. we don t know how he s going to react to this external pressure and if he s going to escalate. catherine, thank you. catherine and john are going to be sticking with us. we are standing by any minute to hear from president biden and his message to the american people, people of ukraine as well as vladimir putin. we ll bring that to you live, this big announcement coming from president biden any moment. in the meantime, american consumers, as we ve been d
and i m going to hold on that until we get more information. thank you. appreciate it. all right. you re listening to president biden there making that big announcement. banning russian oil imports into the united states. back with me now, cnn white house correspondent john harwood and catherine ranpal. they target the main artery of russia, with this announcement, what did you hear? reporter: i heard a president trying to shield himself from the blowback for this step in multiple ways. he called it putin s price hike. he warned oil companies not to gouge. condition americans to think some of the increase may come from predatory behavior by the companies. he said nothing his administration had done has held back domestic oil production so far. he referred to all of the leases that are held that are not wells being drilled right now, that s a function in part of the lagging effect of depress demand